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Starcraft II's Browder: Sequel Influences Include Dawn Of War II
by Staff, Chris Remo
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October 26, 2009
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While creating its highly anticipated follow-up to Starcraft, Blizzard looked at a lot of games from various developers seeking learning sources, including Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II, according to Starcraft II project lead Dustin Browder.
Starcraft II project lead Dustin Browder specifically pointed out the Relic Entertainment title: "I certainly found Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II to be interesting, and I learned a lot about RTSes by playing that game because they've done some interesting things," he said.
Bowder was speaking to Gamasutra as part of a larger feature interview on Starcraft II's design. He has years of experience working on real-time strategy titles that have competed against the Starcraft series; before joining Blizzard in 2005, he worked as a lead designer at Westwood Pacific for six years on the Command & Conquer franchise.
"We're hardcore PC gamers," explains the project lead. "We play lots and lots of games made by lots and lots of developers. We try to look and analyze what is working for them in their game, or what is not working for them in their game."
He adds, "Is there anything about what they're doing that we can learn from, either what not to do or what to do? We're constantly looking at what other people are doing and trying to decide what's right for us and what makes sense for us."
Though Bowder admits his team was influenced by other titles while working on Starcraft II, he insists the game will have its own identity. "At the end of the day, often, our games have their own style and personality, so we end up often speaking to our games and not just importing things willy-nilly from other games."
"But a lot of things that we've done have been inspired by things we've seen in other titles that we liked, but that we thought we could do better or that we thought we should do differently for our game in particular."
You can now read the full Gamasutra interview with Starcraft II project lead Dustin Browder, including many other insights on the upcoming game's design like deciding which units to remove from the final product, the differences with working on a franchise like Command & Conquer versus Starcraft II, and more.
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"In Blizzard news" the rumor mill declares, "a patent titled 'RJ-S-845-C has been filed by the Diablo 2 developer. A single S? And a single C? Could this be...STARCRAFT 2!?!?" And there I'll be, rolling on the newsstand sidewalk, giggling with excitement.
"It's coming!" I yell to concerned passer-bys and police officers. "Starcraft two is COMING!"
Suffice to say, this past year has been extremely delightful to me on the Blizzard front. And while I anticipate this game's release, I whet my appetite with other RTS titles. And I'll very gladly admit that after Homeworld, Company of Heroes, and Dawn of War, Relic really knows how to make a solid RTS game. And I'll also admit that the Command and Conquer titles in the first half of the 2000 decade were quite awesome. So here I am, almost strung in serendipity, ranting irrelevantly, at the galactic (insurmountable?) quantity of hype I have invested in this game.
If they're going to borrow influence, they're definitely looking in the right direction for it.
We've come full circle, gentlemen. Next up, once Starcraft II is released, we'll see Zerg units in the new Tyranid book.