The Story of Starcraft Part 18: Wings of Liberty: It's About Time
How appropriate.
This retrospective series finished up with Brood War story, then went into a long hiatus before talking about Starcraft 2. That was definitely intentional – a homage to the decade-long gap between OG Starcraft and Starcraft 2.
It wasn’t at all because things got away from me.
But, hey, my break was only six months. Let’s not make it any longer.
The sequel trilogy (but actually good)
Starcraft 2 is on a bold scale, well above the earlier Blizzard games. The earlier Starcraft (and Warcraft) games contained campaigns from each faction, adding up to a full game.
Warcraft 2 had two campaigns: Orc and Human.
Starcraft had three: Terran, Zerg, Protoss. Then Brood War had another three – one from each race again.
With Starcraft 2, each campaign is the length of each earlier game. Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty – the Terran campaign - contains over two dozen missions. It’s a full game in its own right, making Starcraft 2 a trilogy of sorts.
Wings of Liberty was a long time in the making. The consensus says it was worth the wait. My usual contrarianism has to choke on its tongue and agree with that.
It’s good. This isn’t Star Wars – this sequel trilogy outshines the original in many ways. Not every way, but many. We’ll see how and why soon enough.
The Wings of Liberty trailer
Rumours fly, anticipation builds. Brood War came out a decade or so ago – several generations in video game time.
Then we get treated to a cinematic teaser trailer
It’s simple, but it says a lot.
We see an unnamed convict – it’s Tychus, but we don’t know that yet – stepping forward in a typically Terran room. It’s dark, grimy and filled with advanced technology. He’s covered in scars and tattoos all over his muscular body. His eyes squint into a glare and a cigar burns in his mouth.
Through speakers, Mengsk monologues at the convict. He gives a delightfully generic villain speech (Evil Morty would be proud). The familiar voice of an adjunctant tells the convict to step forward.
The convict stands there while machines assemble a marine suit around him – piece by piece, bolt by bolt, weld by weld. Mengsk describes this suit as his cell – one he’ll carry with him into the war that’s approaching.
The familiar marine has never looked so awesome and intimidating.
The convict says, “Hell, it’s about time” before his visor closes over his face (and lit cigar). A great line from a character talking to the audience as well as another character.
It is about time. We’ve waited on this for so long.
The Wings of Liberty opening cinematic
Fire up a new Wings of Liberty campaign and you get another cinematic. This is short, but backs a lot of information into it.
Jim Raynor – much older now – is at a bar, drinking, while news plays on the television behind him. Yeah, a news show delivering exposition is a cliché. It works here for a few reasons, though.
One, we’re not just watching the show. We’re watching Raynor react to the show too.
Two, the writing is tight. We don’t linger here for long.
In just a few minutes, we learn a lot. It’s four years since the end of Brood War. A Zerg invasion is considered a threat, not an active crisis, which immediately raises questions. Kerrigan won the Brood War, decisively. What’s she been doing since then?
Mengsk is still the emperor. His grip over the Dominion has only strengthened. We can see the thread of his story over the last four years, using the tenuous peace of the Brood War to consolidate.
He calls Raynor a terrorist. The last we say the two of them in Brood War, Raynor was saving Mengsk. It’s not hard to see how things have changed since then. Raynor carries a photo of pre-infestation Kerrigan. He still blames Mengk for what happened to her. He still fights against his tyranny.
But Raynor is older now. He’s a drunk, a has-been, a freedom fighter barely getting by on scraps and fumes. The last four years have broken him. Not shattered him – he's still in the fight – but he’s not the man he used to be.
Even in this short cinematic, he swings between rage and despair before pulling himself together.
It’s great storytelling. The classic rule is Show, Don’t Tell. Yes, this tells us a lot – mostly details to catch the player up. A common question folks will have is when is this happening? Straight up, it says it’s four years later.
There’s a lot more showing than telling, though. Even with CGI you could only describe as vintage, Raynor conveys a lot with his body language. He’s hunched over, defeated, surrounded by guns, whisky, a photo of the woman he loved (from before her fate-worse-than-death), dirt, country music and loneliness.
Things aren’t going well for ol’ Jimmy.
Lucky for him, this next chapter in his story is just starting.