The Story of Starcraft 8: Zerg Units

The Zerg faction has a few themes to their design.

First up, they are alien. Yeah, obviously, they’re aliens, but what I mean is they’re alien. I pick on Vulcans a lot - in appearance and behaviour, they’re basically humans. Not the Zerg, though. These critters are weird, foreign and gross.

Secondly… horror. These units are savage monsters, looking and acting like something from a horror movie. They’re not the Predator - an intelligent foe who will shoot you. They’re more like the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise - wild monsters that hunt, attack and kill like animals.

They also stray into body horror and a few other subgenres.

Third, they are a relentless, fearless swarm. They fight like an insect hive, sacrificing huge numbers of their own forces. They’re called the Zerg Swarm because that’s what they do - they swarm.

Number Four, they’re a creepy hivemind that assimilates what it doesn’t kill.

You get that last one from the sheer variety of Zerg units.

Here’s how the unit designs convey the rest.

Drones

These are the workers in any Zerg cluster.

They harvest minerals by spitting corrosive acid on them, then scooping up the remnants.

They construct buildings by mutating into them.

I’ve been playing Starcraft (on and off) for more than half my life. It still creeps me out if I think about it too much. They look like giant, terrifying bugs who can enter cocoons and emerge from them as building-sized growths.

That’s definitely Alien. Is it Horror? I think it only feels that way because it’s so weird, so I won’t count that.

Zerglings

These chittering, dog-sized lizard/bug/whatevers are scary, sure, because anything in a warzone trying to kill you qualifies as that.

They’re light on the Horror, though. The best they can do to spook you is a good jump scare. That happens in some cut scenes - it can also happen in the game, since they can burrow underground and wait in ambush.

Zerglings aren’t there to terrify you - they’re there to overwhelm you. Small and cheap, they’re great in a fight because there are so many of them.

They help the Zerg Swarm feel like a Swarm.

Hydralisks

Mechanically, hydralisks are a solid all-rounder. They have a ranged attack that hits pretty hard.

Design-wise?

These things are monsters.

Larger than a human, they’re like gigantic snakes with glowing red eyes, rows of fangs and long, scythe-like blades for arms.

Even the way they move is this creepy, slithering motion.

They’re familiar to us, only because they’re straight out of our nightmares. Add one to the Horror column.

Ultralisks

Ultralisks are the living tanks of the Zerg. They are enormous weapons of war, capable of soaking shots and delivering punishment.

They’re not too alien, if you think about elephants. They even have tusks, sort of.

When playing against the Zerg, the horror comes from knowing a couple of these can ruin your day. In-universe, the horror is like that of seeing a kaiju. This isn’t something that stalks in the shadows and waits for you to go to sleep - it is tons and tons of meat, armour, blades and anger, ready to rip through your entire world.

That’s another for Horror. It might also count as Swarming, if only because one of these is the equivalent of a small swarm in itself.

Overlords

Attack a Zerg base you’ll see this giant, living zeppelins floating around.

Overlords provide supply, which allows the Zerg to build more units. The logic here ties in with the lore nicely. Terrans need food, fuel and bullets to keep their armies fighting. The Zerg, though, grow their own weapons and draw nourishment from their living bases. Overlords provide telepathic contact with and control over Zerg units.

The Zerg could build a billion-strong army, keeping it fed and in fighting shape. They might struggle to coordinate a force like that, though - not without enough Overlords.

Overlords are Alien - everything from their lore to their design is freaky. It also adds to the Swarm-like nature of the Zerg, not because they show up in huge numbers but their existence suggests other Zerg creatures do.

Mutalisks

Imagine a giant, flying worm with a pig snout that shoots living blades from the skies.

Mutalisks are Alien. They also Swarm, working best in large numbers, striking hard and fast to overwhelm their enemies.

Guardians

Guardians are flying siege units, spitting globs of acid at huge range. Death can come at any time, sometimes from off-screen. They look like giant spiders or crabs. That sounds like Horror to me.

Scourge

Ahh, the scourge. Fast, flying sacks of gas, the suicide bombers of the Zerg sky. They get close to their enemies and ignite their gases, causing painful explosions.

Launching suicide attacks is like a bee defending a hive, so this is Swarming. They look and act Alien. The Horror of the sudden death they bring gets real at times.

They might be the Zergiest units of all.

Queens

Creepy, scary, bizarre.

Zerg Queens can fly (in this version of the game, anyway), spy on enemies, slow them down and… well…

They can shoot a pellet at a living creature - even if they’re surrounded by layers of steel. This pellet kills the creature instantly, spawning tiny, short-lived monsters - broodlings - from the corpse.

That’s body Horror right there, combined with the dread of instant death from a foe you probably won’t see coming. Queens are also Alien, looking like kites with horns.

Get a few of them together and they can create a sudden Swarm of broodlings, for a few seconds at least.

Defilers

Defilers are creepy. They’re even more bug-like than most other Zerg units, looking like overblown centipedes. The way they wriggle across the map gives me goose bumps.

They can’t attack but they have nasty abilities. A few of them can soften up a fortified base or roaming army.

Horror. Definitely.

Infested Terrans

Some humans aren’t lucky enough to be killed by the Zerg. Instead, they become infested.

Think zombies and you’re close. These infested Terran are often still conscious but have no control over their bodies. Instead, they watch helplessly as they shuffle up to their old mates before exploding.

That’s body Horror. It’s also scary for the player facing them because they hit hard. One infested Terran probably won’t gut your squad, but it could.

Great… So what?

You might put these units in different categories. You might even have different categories altogether.

It doesn’t matter, because they all come together to tell the same story: the Zerg are scary, weird and gross.

Adding up the numbers, we get:

Alien: 5 units

Horror: 7 units

Swarm: 5 units

making it a weird haiku? Given how wildly subjective this all is, I’m happy to say that’s a reasonable balance.

Each Zerg unit tells you something about the lore, even if you don’t know the lore. If all you do is player competitive matches against your mates, you still learn what the Zerg Swarm is really all about.

Now that’s some good design.