Rush, Boom, Turtle: The Game So Nice They Made It Thrice

The story of StarCraft IIa, StarCraft IIb and StarCraft IIc
10/24/2008 5:10 PM | 4 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Now I don't deny that some RTSes have excellent stories stuck around the edges. But they have next to nothing to do with the RTS part of the RTS. They are invariably the domain of whatever cut scenes get put between the missions. For instance, the original StarCraft is widely regarded as having a great story, and I'd probably agree if I could remember anything about it beyond some chick named Kerrigan getting turned into a Zerg. But I'll bet the bulk of the development process for the original StarCraft wasn't spent on the story, which was entirely typical of how RTSes tell stories: gameplay, then cut scene, then gameplay, then cut scene, then gameplay, then cut scene, then credits, then multiplayer.

To Blizzard's credit, it knows that a cut scene is a good format for storytelling. Just watch a movie (preferably a good one) for an example of how well this works. Blizzard's internal team working on cinematics exceeds 100 people.

But the actual real-time strategy gameplay doesn't lend itself to storytelling, because -- and I almost hate to tell you this -- it's a puzzle. And here is the heart of the puzzle: \How do you convert the on-map resources more efficiently than your opponent? Single-player missions often modify the puzzle with certain restrictions, like making you play chess without the bishop or Tetris without the "L"-shaped piece. But unlike a shooter or a role-playing game or a driving game, it always comes down to the puzzle-ness of it. There's a certain purity at the heart of any RTS.

So there you go. I've effectively stripped every RTS down to its bare bones. I'm sorry you had to see that, because RTSes are kind of ugly when you look at them as a barebones framework. Luckily, most RTSes layer on some graphics and personality and tactical fiddling. And many try to tell a story by having some hero unit assist the puzzle (don't let him get killed, or you'll have to start over because you've messed up the story!). Blizzard notoriously tried to build WarCraft III as an RPG before finally deciding to just make it an RTS after all. But you can no more make this puzzle a compelling story than you can build a plot around a bunch of games of Sudoku. Or chess. Or Tetris.

Now I could be wrong, and I welcome any corrections, but I can't think of a single compelling instance of storytelling that happened during an actual RTS match. The real narrative is between missions, whether you're talking about the excellent DIY story of dynamic campaigns like Rome: Total War, the goofball cinematics of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, or the tragedy of Arthas in WarCraft III. But in each case, before and after there are the puzzles. Always the puzzles.

All this is my way of saying Blizzard's decision to stretch StarCraft II into three games strikes me as a simple grab for more money, which is entirely within its rights. But I'm not buying the whitewash about how its storyline is just too epic and the game needs triple the development time to correctly tell it. If they want to draw out StarCraft to make more money, they should have found a better excuse. They could have just said they were once again imitating Warhammer 40,000 by adopting the Dawn of War model!