Wing Commander Influencing Starcraft 2 Design
Shacknews has published an interview with Starcraft 2's lead designer, Dustin Browder, on the subject of story integration in the upcoming real-time strategy title. The game will feature AI NPC characters that are leveraged for plot elements while being used as a gameplay component. They'll even be sitting in the bar and hanging around the ship as the main character walks the halls between mission. This style of optional storytelling was heavily influenced by classic Wing Commanders. Check out the full interview here. Thanks to NCC1701.
Dustin Browder: And our theme in this one, it's like, look, everyone has a different tolerance for story. Some people want more, some people want less. We don't want to force it down their throat, but we don't want it not in there. So we create an environment where it's much more of an optional experience. If you're really interested in these characters--and we kind of hope that at some point everyone is interested in at least some of them--then you can sort of customize your story experience and get as much of it as you want.Shack: It sort of reminds me of flight sim games.
Dustin Browder: It's very Wing Commander.
Shack: Yeah, Wing Commander, any of those games.
Dustin Browder: Tie Fighter, yeah. Wing Commander is one of our obvious favorite games. We all played it back in the day and loved it, and it's something that definitely spoke to us. I know we're going back years now to pull some of these things out, but we kind of feel like hey, what if it works? Other folks sort of feel like there's sort of an evolution, you can't go back. We're like, hey, if it works, we can go anywhere.
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