Starcraft 2 doesn’t blame you for anything

Real-time strategy (RTS) games are well-known for their steep learning curves.  The most important resource for players is their attention span—can they keep track of their economy, the army they’re raising, and the multitude of battles waging across the map?  Lag behind in any of those areas and you’ve lost the game.  They’re frequently unforgiving, too—I’ve lost more than SO MANY GAMES because of something I did (or more likely, didn’t do) several minutes ago. 

Still, I love them.  It’s no surprise that Jacob and I started Probably Entertainment after working on an RTS for several years, and nothing would make me happier than to release that first game. 

But before we can, I have to write a blog about stories in RTS games.  You can’t do anything if you haven’t first written a blog about it. 

Duh.

And what better game to tackle than Starcraft II?  The follow-up to the most popular RTS of all time, a game with well-loved and interesting characters in a compelling universe, a game developed by the behemoth Blizzard Entertainment, who never releases a game before it’s ready? 

So, yeah.  There are going to be spoilers.  Hear me?  SPOILERS. 

Let’s begin. 

In SC2, we follow Jim Raynor, the ex-marshall whose sense of justice is still intact.  He’s started drinking since the events of Starcraft, and he’s on the run—the Terran Dominion is after him for being a terrorist and holding a grudge against their leader, Arcturus Mengsk.  He can’t forget his love, Sarah Kerrigan, who Mengsk abandoned to the Zerg (terrifying bug aliens), damning her to become the Queen of Blades, the most terrifying bug alien of them all. 

Mmmkay, flawed character—deep regrets, powerful enemies, alcohol clouds his judgment—we’re off to a good start.  RTS games are about huge battles being waged, and our protagonist is connected to some of the most powerful beings in the sector—beings in control of huge armies.  It fits. 

As the story opens, part an ancient artifact is uncovered, and Raynor’s gotta catch 'em all.  Together, they may contain the power to keep the Zerg at bay, or even reverse the Zerg infestation of humans—

OMG like Kerrigan

—so collect them Raynor does.  Even though he’s not sure Sarah can become human again, even though reaching her requires an assault on an entire planet of Zerg, even though it means daring raids on secret Dominion facilities to steal enormous war machines, even though it means giving up drinking, Raynor…

Wait.  He did give up the drinking, right?  I think so.  It… didn’t really matter much to the story.  It’s not like he ever made a bad decision because he was drunk. 

Wait.  Raynor… never made a bad decision.  Ever.  Even when the two choices given to the player are “don’t burn all the people” or “make sure ALL the people burn”, the player can’t make the wrong choice. 

The fuck? 

If the player chooses NOT to burn the people, we discover that they weren’t infested by the Zerg and were being wrongly persecuted.  It’s a good thing you stood your ground and saved the lives of innocents. 

…but if we did burn them, it’s a damn good thing, because them buggers were infested!  Glad you can make the tough decisions and live with the consequences. 

Ah, right—consequences!  That’s what we’re missing with these decisions. 

To be fair, it’s tougher to make decisions matter when your characters are fighting with entire armies because the repercussions will vary more wildly.  You’re not just betraying one person—you’re betraying an entire culture.  They’ll remember.  Or switch out your verbs, and you’re ravaging, saving, befriending, or deceiving an entire population—and the difference between torching or defending a planet could play out in countless ways, as so many characters’ lives hang in the balance.  All of their motivations will affect the rest of the story, right? 

Unless you don’t… y’know… deal with that group of people ever again.  Then it might not matter anyway. 

(Here’s where I cough accusingly)

Well… maybe we reward players regardless of their decisions because it keeps us from compromising Raynor’s character—he’s a hero, after all.  He must remain noble, pure, decisive.  Y’know—heroic!  If he torched innocent people, he wouldn’t be a hero.  He’d be a redneck space Nazi, and even in space Australia, that’s bad. 

Except… why did we give him all those flaws in the first place if we have to maintain his image?  Why does he drink?  That’s not noble.  Why is he a terrorist?  That’s not pure!  And why reward decisiveness if you can’t be wrong?  If it's a story about redemption, about overcoming mistakes... why can't Raynor make a goddamn mistake at some point?  

Which is possibly the largest flaw in Starcraft II.  Raynor attacks the Zerg-infested planet of Char in the insane attempt to return humanity to the Queen of Blades.  He risks everything—his life, the lives of his crew, the security of all Terran-controlled space—for the possibility he can save Kerrigan. 

Good shit, right?  That’s a flawed character! 

Mmm.  Except that there’s a short arc in the campaign in which Raynor is shown visions of the future.  These visions explain that Kerrigan is the last hope for all living beings in the Koprulu sector.  If she dies, if she isn’t returned to her humanity—everyone is doomed. 

Which makes the assault on Char NOT insane—actually, it’s the ONLY sane thing to do.  Raynor isn’t flawed for placing love before security—Raynor is presented with cake.  Instead of ignoring it so the universe dies, he decides to eat it and make it human again, too.  The tension is completely undercut by knowing Raynor can’t fail, or else the franchise is over. 

And even before release, Blizzard had already announced two expansions. 

Two. 

Plus the subplot of Raynor’s old friend, Tychus, being contracted by Mengsk to kill Kerrigan is ruined by this prophecy.  If Tychus doesn’t kill Kerrigan, Mengsk will kill him. 

But we know Kerrigan can’t die. 

So… Tychus is gonna fuckin’ die. 

And Mengsk’s death threat deflates Jim’s choice to kill Tychus—that fucker was going to die anyway, so whatevs.  Can’t feel guilty about that one, Jim. 

As for SC2’s first expansion, Heart of the Swarm—it’s an underwhelming sequel, narratively.  Don’t worry, there aren’t any more spoilers—I’m keeping things vague, because Jacob’s not done with the campaign yet. 

Gone are the branching choices, perhaps because Blizzard realized they weren’t working.  Also, the story is a largely personal journey for Sarah Kerrigan as she struggles with her newfound humanity.  What does it mean to control the Zerg, a destructive force, now that she is completely free-thinking?  Can she turn murder machines into a good thing?  Can she face the monster she used to be?  Can she redeem herself?  

Sorry, those are my questions.  Blizzard doesn't really ask them.  

Well, she kills battalions of people right away.  But that struggle with her humanity is really… key.  To the… plot? 

Yeah.  It’d be nice if she had more internal conflict than how best to kill ‘em all, but it’d also be great if we had even the hint of a story exploring her flaws.  Something like Raynor’s (supposed) choice between his love and the lives of countless human beings.  Instead, we’re lacking any sense that Kerrigan’s choices affect the sector as a whole (she actually leaves the sector for a good chunk of the campaign), and the lives she holds in the balance are alien lives.  Not human-like aliens’ lives, not the lives of sentient beings—gross nasty creature lives, aliens who have evolved to overwhelm their foes by sheer numbers, aliens who win because they die mindlessly, on purpose, because Kerrigan tells them to. 

We don’t give two fucks about their lives. 

So what’s at stake?  Kerrigan’s not too worried about her humanity, so neither are we.  We don’t care about her allies, because they’re homicidal ants.  She leaves behind the sector we’ve always known, full of conflict and characters we love, so that she can continue to not worry about her humanity. 

She just wants revenge.  And she already got revenge in Brood War.  Kerrigan has single-handedly killed more characters in the Starcraft universe than anyone else, and her motivation in Heart of the Swarm is to… kill one more?  That’s the whole point of a campaign as long as the original Starcraft? 

But I’m forgetting about the prophecy saying she’s the last hope of the sector! 

Yeah.  So did Blizzard. 

*mic drop*