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Heart of the Swarm Preview Round Up

The embargoes are lifted and the previews are out! Dozen's of journalist converged on Blizzard's Irvine headquarters earlier this month to get a hands on preview of the single player and a run down of some of the latest features for the multiplayer side of Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Taking it all in can be a bit overwhelming, so we're going to try give you only the good stuff in our Heart of the Swarm Preview Round Up.

Video:

This gameplay trailer features plenty new single player footage as well as a preview of the latest Battle.net UI iteration including a previously unseen "Game Length Bonus" at 2m 21s.

Teamliquid.net's Shindigs interviews Dustin Browders on the topics of:

Single player
Unit Spreading
Xel'naga Watchtowers
The Absence of the Map Marketplace
Ladder Maps
More Battle.net Features
The Benefits of an eSports Community

Nothing new to glean from the released opening cinematic but it's definitely looking sharp.

Articles:

But things have changed. Blizzard has sloughed off old design decisions. New Zerg units have come and gone. Game mechanics have been reworked.

Polygon.com - Hands-on with StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm's evolved Zerg single-player campaign

Polygon breaks down how the single player has changed from it's last showing and how the developers have tried to make the expansion more than "A terran campaign with a bunch of ooze on it"

There were still notable tidbits of new information to be gleaned, and a new video demo showcased some features not yet seen in the multiplayer beta.

Teamliquid.net - Heart of the Swarm Preview

Teamliquid leaves no stones unturned in this exhaustive preview that includes everything all the way down to the tooltips on Kerrigan's skill tree. Some of the more useful pieces of information include details of the new Battle.net Training mode, an AI matchmaker and unlockable Unit Skins

“A lot of the units we’re putting back in, things like Mothership core, things like earlier Reapers, allow us to get a lot of the aggression back in the game for races that previously couldn’t pressure in that respect. I think you’ll see a much more balanced experience in the long run. Whether we hit it out the gate or not? I have no idea, we’re still in the throes of beta... Now we’re actually making the game for these maps.”

IGN.com - StarCraft II's Game Director on Balance, eSports and More

More choice words from everyone's favourite Rock including the status of Blizzard's MOBA and how they intend to bring back aggression in the face of larger maps. You can also view their single player impressions in second article that details the three preview missions on show at the event.

These new modes and features will, Blizzard hopes, give those who previously avoided multiplayer a little push in the direction of competitive play.

Eurogamer.net - Do you suffer from StarCraft 2 ladder anxiety? Blizzard hopes Heart of the Swarm will help you beat it

Eurogamer delves deep into the mind of production director Chris Sigaty detailing how Blizzard intends to ease people more gently into competitive play. They also touch on the fate of Blizzard All-Stars in a companion article, emphasising that it has been rebooted and will likely become it's own product.

"I have more confidence in this solution than I did [with Wings of Liberty's] Challenge Mode. But I also know a lot more about the problem than I did with Challenge Mode."

Joystiq.com - Mission to evolve Starcraft 2 with Heart of the Swarm

Joystiq covers lessons learned over the course of Wings of Liberty in everything from the single player to the achievement system.

We could nerf the Infestor even harder, and would that be good, because we wouldn’t see so many Infestors? Totally agree. But if we nerf the Infestor too hard, the Zerg may not be able to win

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Mega Interview with Dustin Browder

PC Gamer squeezed DB for his candid thoughts on the fundamnetal issues in Wings and how HotS is attempting to fix them.



Learn More:

HOTS Balance Update #12
Heart of the Swarm Beta Access Expanded