We just got our hands on the new Heart of the Swarm gameplay teaser trailer for the upcoming StarCraft 2 expansion and thanks to the official preview page we have additionl details regarding the expansion, including a sneak peek at two of the missions for the single-player campaign and the background story for the expansion.
Heart of the Swarm Missions
In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, you must help Sarah Kerrigan fight her way through a vast single-player campaign that will take you to some of the most dangerous worlds of the Koprulu sector. Here is a quick preview of a couple of the missions included in the expansion:
- Char - Even though Raynor’s Raiders and prince Valerian’s forces were able to neutralize the Queen of Blades and cripple the Swarm, a vast number of zerg hives still remain on Char. Without the Queen of Blades' unifying presence, some zerg queens have begun to take control of individual zerg broods.
Kerrigan returns to Char determined to reunite the Swarm under her control. Before her defeat, the Queen of Blades hid caches of eggs on the planet; gathering these eggs and returning them to the spawning pools to hatch will allow Kerrigan to quickly grow her numbers. There is, of course, a catch: one of the rogue queens is collecting Kerrigan’s unhatched eggs as well and spawning them as her own. The only way to ensure Kerrigan’s victory is to hatch as many eggs as possible and to use superior numbers to subdue the rogue queen.
- Kaldir - The zerg are able to infest almost any world they encounter, a testament to their amazing ability to adapt to the universe's most extreme environments. The planet Kaldir is one such environment. Its extreme cold and frequent flash freezes make this one of the most inhospitable worlds in the Koprulu sector... which is exactly what sparked the Queen of Blades’ interest in Kaldir. Hoping to make the Swarm stronger by evolving a way to deal with extreme cold, she sent a brood to infest Kaldir. However, the brood never reunited with the Swarm.
On Kaldir, Kerrigan’s objective is twofold: learn to adapt to the withering cold, and discover what happened to the lost brood. Before long, you will learn the brood's fate... and when you do, the cold of Kaldir will be the least of your worries.
Heart of the Swarm Story
According to the official "preview" page for the expansion, the story for the "Heart of the Swarm" expansion is as follows:
The Queen of Blades is gone. On the hellish planet Char, Jim Raynor harnessed the power of an ancient Xel’Naga artifact in a desperate bid to stop the zerg Swarm from overrunning the Koprulu sector, and the artifact restored Sarah Kerrigan to her human form. Without their queen to guide and unify them, the Swarm has fractured into several broods scattered throughout the Koprulu sector. One of the greatest threats to the galaxy has been neutralized... or so it seems.
Sarah Kerrigan is on the loose. Even without the terrible powers of the Queen of Blades or the might of the Swarm at her command, the former Ghost remains a foe not to be taken lightly. But if the artifact really did set her free, then why is Kerrigan seeking out zerg broods scattered throughout the Koprulu sector? What happened to Jim Raynor? Is she still pursuing her quest for vengeance, or has her transformation given Kerrigan a new purpose?