StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Review

A meaty old-school expansion that gives Kerrigan and her zerg brood a satisfying return.

Not everyone was happy about Blizzard breaking StarCraft II's story up into a trilogy. But here's one great side effect: the zerg-themed campaign in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is something more ambitious than simply more of the same of what we got in 2010's Wings of Liberty. Blizzard takes some risks with the formula to put zerg Queen Sarah Kerrigan in a real leading role, and enough of them pay off that this expansion is a great reminder of why a big, 20-mission expansion can be more rewarding than a drip-feed of small DLC add-ons.

 

Heart of the Swarm's story can't fix the fact that the plot of the StarCraft II trilogy is a deluge of cliches hurtling toward a predictable "warring races unite to confront a powerful god-like enemy" conclusion (gosh, where have we seen that before?), but at least it feels like it's actually trying now. Little time is wasted in reversing Sarah Kerrigan's de-zergification at the end of Wings of Liberty – a decision she wrestles with for the entire... tutorial – and setting her out on a quest for long-overdue revenge against Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Don't expect many surprises, but the cinematics are of the beautiful quality we've come to expect from Blizzard, so at least it looks good.
It's a relief, at least, to see that this time Kerrigan is treated like an actual character who prides herself in her use of cunning as opposed to the blindly rampaging, smack-talking monster of Wings of Liberty. Blizzard does a reasonably good job of transitioning her to a non-evil but still dangerous state of mind. She'll now go out of her way to avoid slaughtering innocents, but still finds ample opportunity to mercilessly order her swarm of alien bug monsters to "kill them all!" when facing an enemy.
This crew of monsters is by far more memorable than Raynor's bunch. Despite cliche-heavy dialogue, I enjoyed chatting with her zerg lieutenants aboard her ship between missions, especially resident genetic engineer and gross caterpillar-like creature, Abathur. His ethics-free conversations with Kerrigan are a good way to showcase her newfound morality, while exposing more of the zerg backstory. I was glad to only have to put up with Captain Bland...I mean Horner... for the one non-zerg mission where you control Jim Raynor's battlecruiser, Hyperion, in a great little space battle. That one's a welcome intermission that wisely doesn't make you re-learn how to play as terran to succeed.

The space battle doesn't have much depth, but it's cool while it lasts.

Nearly every other mission of Heart of the Swarm is focused on Kerrigan, in a very direct way. Fittingly, she's on the battlefield almost every time, leading her delightfully slimey soldiers and growing absurdly powerful by the middle of the campaign by means of a flexible RPG system that allows you to swap out powers between missions. I generally prefer a more permanent character-development system, but in an RTS this system makes a lot of good sense – if you find your choice of powers isn't working in against the enemies in a given mission, you can restart it with a different set.
Some of her powers seem dramatically more useful than others, making the choice a no-brainer (why would I want Vespene Extractors that don't need Drones to harvest when I could have Drones that spawn two per egg?), but others present some good options. The ability to summon a small group of suicide-bombing Banelings at will became my go-to favorite – when they appear and detonate directly underfoot, it can completely wipe out entire mobs of enemies. But even that's useless against airborne foes, so in a mission with a lot of enemy aircraft I might leave it behind for Wild Mutation, which can boost my Hydralisks' attack speed.
Blizzard wisely made Kerrigan respawn back at the base if she's killed instead of ending the mission, so I felt free to keep her on the front lines where her powers could do the most damage. Outside of her slightly ridiculous in-game walking animation (imagine speed-walking in heels), she's a lot of fun to play with and watch in action, and she allowed me to burst through tough defenses that would take normal zerg troops a while to crack.

Powers are mix 'n matchable.

Because of the prominence of a hero character, mission design shows quite a bit of influence from the MOBA genre (which is built on Defense of the Ancients, a mod for Warcraft III... so fair play). Several missions even have creeps – waves of AI-controlled friendly units. It's a great addition, and it makes sure there's a sense of constant battle even if you're not actively attacking. That helps to prop up the illusion that the enemy AI isn't just sitting back and waiting for you to build up an army.
To allow us to spend time controlling Kerrigan, much of the zerg's signature micromanagement has been toned down for the single-player campaign. Notably, there's no need to have a Queen constantly injecting additional larvae into a Hive to increase unit spawn rates, and most of the upgrade research is done by picking a bonus for each unit before missions. I can't say I missed the larvae thing, since it's busywork that has nearly put me off playing zerg in multiplayer, but it does take away something that makes the zerg unique.
One place where the hero-focused design doesn't work well is the boss battles against huge, super-powered enemies with canned attack patterns. Most of these turn into dull exercises in moving Kerrigan out of the way of flashing attack markers that feel straight out of mediocre third-person action games. That style of fight didn't work terrifically well in Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2, either. Maybe RTS games just aren't cut out for boss fights?

But will you be worth fighting? Probably not.

Even so, there are some great standout missions, such as the one where a single zerg larvae infests an escaping protoss ship and goes on a rampage. (I also like how that mission sets up a zerg threat for the protoss to deal with in the third part of this trilogy, Legacy of the Void.) Nothing matches Wings of Liberty's famous zombie mission, but they're all extremely well-designed and generally show some form of innovation, even if it's just a unique way of showing a countdown timer.
I did feel like I'd played a few of these before, though. Unlike Wings of Liberty, where almost every mission has a unique spin on RTS mission design, Swarm recycles a few ideas. A race to collect biomass before an enemy force can destroy it feels an awful lot like the one where Raynor races to collect gas samples before the protoss can cap off the geysers, for example. Playing as zerg instead of terran makes a difference, of course.
We don't get to make story-branching morality decisions for Kerrigan like we do for Raynor in Wings of Liberty, but what choices we do get give the campaign some terrific replayabilty. First, we get to decide which planet to go to first, and that means access to different units at different times. The presence or absence of something as useful as a Hydralisk can make all the difference in the world for how you tackle an objective. On that note, I love the contrast of Heart of the Swarm's many worlds, with icy, volcanic, jungle, and urban locations to fight in – plus several interiors. All of them look colorful and fantastic, with lots of great environmental detail in their landscapes and effects like snow and steam.
Even better is the Evolution system. Despite confusing what the word "evolution" actually means, deciding what advanced form units should take presents some very tough mutually exclusive options. For example, one Roach variant spawns mini-Roaches every time it kills an enemy; the other slows its target's rate of fire and movement. So the choice is about whether you want to use the Roaches against groups of light units or against heavier ones. It's a permanent decision, so they gave me pause every time. I've already caved into the urge to go back and replay some of the missions because I wanted to play with the other option, and the different tactics I was able to use made it well worth my time.

 

Pretty much every one of these mutations is crazy-powerful and would completely break the multiplayer balance (like the near-instantly spawning Zerglings that spawn three per egg instead of two), but in the campaign they make Heart of the Swarm feel like something new and more interesting than playing with the same units we get in multiplayer. It's great to be able to use even more potent versions of classic units like Mutalisks and Ultralisks.
I wish the Evolution Missions you have to play to develop a unit were optional, though. It's a good idea – each is effectively a tutorial for the two possible units, allowing you to try them before you decide – but they're so completely without challenge that after the first few they feel like a chore. (No, they don't count toward the 20-mission total.) It might not be such a pain if it weren't for the long level-load times, which can be up to a minute.
The other aspect that improves replayablity is that Heart of the Swarm continues Blizzard's excellent achievement design, which rewards us for not only obligatory "Kill X protoss" milestones but also encourages us to go out of our way to accomplish optional objectives, often within a limited time. Going for these achievements often pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me reason to shoot to do more than just survive a mission.

Our IPL experts play some HotS multiplayer.

As for multiplayer, I don't pretend to be qualified to evaluate how the new units will affect the balance when there are literally StarCraft II professionals around, but I can say that I'm excited to see the new strategies that'll emerge based on the new terran Widow Mines, protoss Mothership Core, and zerg Swarm Host, among the others. Playing around with them certainly gives some ideas as to how they could be useful. At first glance it appears to be a defensive-minded update, but the pros are already proving that no one is ever safe in StarCraft II multiplayer. They also make me very glad for the excellent matchmaking tools that ensure I'll never be paired with someone as good as that when I'm looking for a game.