Writing in Media: How Stacraft 2 Fails as a Narrative

Another in an occasional series of discussions about how writing is done in media, from television to gaming. This post, regarding the full narrative of Starcraft 2, contains spoilers.

The original Starcraft was a monstrous hit in the PC gaming world, one that would partly move to consoles in adaptations for systems such as the Nintendo 64. The Blizzard created Real Time Strategy game cams as a break from the studio's traditional swords & sorcery RTS, Warcraft. Starcraft represented a foray into the realm of science fiction and space opera. With an exceptional balance between three playable races (the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss), Starcraft won a place in the hearts of gamers.

The Game Changer

Its follow up, the add-on Brood Wars, kept the strategy flowing with the introduction of new units and a demonstration by the gaming studio that it was committed to keep innovation and new challenges. Along with gamer created maps, competition ladders, and tournaments, Blizzard kept finding ways of keeping Starcraft fresh in gamer's minds. At least, until it let the franchise go dormant for a decade. Before that, though, it was obvious that the game's complex dynamics of three races, each with their own strengths, was popular.

What sometimes gets under appreciated and overlooked is the impact the game's narrative had on fans. Let's recap the landscape of narrative and storytelling in gaming at the time. 1997 saw Squaresoft's landmark hit, Final Fantasy VII, shock the world with its massive world, engaging sci-fi setting, and the shocking in-story death of fan favorite, Aerith. It was a storytelling move that few were prepared for at the time. Gamers who spent time levelling her found their favorite character permanently removed.

These were good graphics in 1997.

Some even reported crying at the loss of a beloved, innocent character. This all occurred in a Japanese Role Playing Game, and Squaresoft had spent a decade establishing that it was willing to try and tell complex narratives in its games. What many didn't foresee was the success Blizzard would have in creating its own, complex science fiction world. The Terrans were inspired by the U.S.' southern Confederacy - in space. They talked with country accents while fighting across the stars against two foreign alien powers.

It was Firefly before Firefly. Parts of the setting were blatantly derived from the Warhammer 40k series, but what separated Starcraft apart was its characters. Each of the three races was prominently represented by a character that defined their species. For the Terrans, it was the southern sherriff and protector of the people, Jim Raynor. For the Zerg, it was the cruel, infested version of Sarah Kerrigan. For the Protoss, it was culturally defiant and sideways thinking Tassadar.

The original Protoss commander in chief.

Each was a 'cool' character in conception, in their own way, but Blizzard's commitment to characterization made them more than simply story stand-ins. Jim Raynor, a loose gunning Confederate sheriff on a backwater world, fought for his people while trying to understand Tassadar, a religious leader of a rigid, caste based alien system. Nobody won more hearts than Sarah Kerrigan, though.

Sarah Kerrigan had a dark past that served two purposes. One, it put a personal face on the cruelty of the Confederacy. The storyline reminded us of the corruption of the government, but Sarah verbally spoke of how she suffered beneath them. Two, it humanized the battlefield. Jim Raynor's interactions with Sarah, both between missions in story 'briefings' and in-game on the field, were lighthearted and eventually affectionate. This was something gamers had not seen in an RTS before.

Credit: Fluxen, DevianArt.

The Terran missions of the original Starcraft was made more entertaining as the rogue sherriff Raynor won over the heart of Kerrigan. At the start of battles, at the end, and at times in between, their banter lightened the mood. These characters bonded, winning over supporters for the two of them to grow closer. This is what made the betrayal of Sarah Kerrigan by her commanding officer, and her eventual infestation and transformation into the Queen of Blades, so tragic for both Jim and the gaming audience.

This isn't to argue that the original Starcraft was brilliant storytelling, but it was good storytelling. Despite a universe partly derivative of Warcraft 40k, the characters, and their interactions, made the narrative come alive. You became attached to the outcome of each race, not simply because you were supposed to root for the good guy and win, but because these characters won you over. Sarah Kerrigan's betrayal by her own commander ranks as highly as Aerith's death in the scheme of gaming shock moments.

It didn't look this good in 1997.

Starcraft 2's narrative fails for many reasons, not the least is the introduction of an eldritch god that took away from the more personal nature of the fighting occurring in the original Starcraft. Where the sequel really loses in comparison to the original is in the loss of character interaction to personalize the conflict. In this respect, Wings of Liberty came closer to being a narrative success than any other edition of the Starcraft 2 series.

Matt Horner, rigid commander of the Hyperion, has to deal with Raynor's drunk ways and regrets over Sarah. Meanwhile, he has a mercenary he was unintentionally married to hoping to reignite their 'love.' Tychus Finchley, a roving Southern badass with no respect for order or authority, was a hilarious break to the heavy mood of Raynor and Starcraft 2 in general. Raynor lost a little of his lightheartedness, and was a worse character for it, but the interesting cast he played off of continued to invest us in his story.

Tychus, the hero we needed, but the one we deserved.

Neither Heart of the Swarm nor Legacy of the Void give us a single quality relationship of the sort we received in the original Starcraft, something to carry us through the doldrums of the game and invest us emotionally. Heart of the Swarm's opening levels have the Raynor-Kerrigan dynamics to keep us interested, before she soon essentially becomes a solo queen with nothing but subservients around her. Some are interesting, such as Abathar, but none make you invest into the story.

Lack of characters to attach to lowers the stakes invested in winning, but the game is further worsened b the way it chooses to use the characters it does have. Starcraft has become a franchise in which emotions are boldly communicated at all times through intense proclamations, speeches, and dramatic moments. However, real life doesn't have many of these, and some of the most binding moments between characters are subtle times in between all the action. In this respect, the Protoss are the worst offenders.

When people aren't busy shouting out how they feel and spouting B-movie worthy speeches about heroism, the game is busy making the Overmind, which in the original Starcraft was a soulless being driven to perfection through the assimilation of all life, into a sympathetic hero. Manipulated against its will by Amon, the aforementioned eldritch horror, the Overmind was simply trying to find a way to save its Zerg.

The undermining of the Zerg collective damaging. Prior to this, the Zerg had been similar to the Borg and were, in essence, a force of nature. Uncaring, unceasing, the death of thousands, millions, or billions meant nothing to them. They were simply driven by their instinct, and posed a frenzied horror that threatened to wipe out civilization as we understood it. Blizzard chose to do with Starcraft 2 what it had done with its Warcraft franchise, and introduce a hidden god spoken of in prophecies.

PROPHECY!

They didn't even accomplish this well. Kerrigan, who in Wings of Liberty is discussed as a key to stopping the dark god, goes almost entirely absent from the final entry in the series, Legacy of the Void, until the epilogue missions of the game. Although I don't want to speak for the writers, it seems almost as if they remembered at the last minute they had set her character up as the key to defeating Amon (who had, only an episode before, been defeated by the Protoss).

It's difficult to sum up the many levels of how Starcraft 2 fails to live up to modern expectations of narrative in gaming. Considering what's been done in games such as Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, though, there is some expectation of a quality narrative in a Triple A game with characters as beloved as Raynor and Kerrigan. However, due to a lack of characters to invest in, over the top dialogue lacking and subtlety, and the forced introduction of fantastical prophecies, Starcraft 2 simply fails to be an engaging story.

At least these things look cool.

Nothing better sums up Blizzard's failure to convey a tense scenario full of emotional investment than the difference between Blizzard's final episode in the Legacy of the Void epilogue, and a mission that occurs halfway through Wings of Liberty. Having just seen Kerrigan transform into an angel (you did not misread that), you then zip her across the map in a fairly easy quest of destroying large crystals to end Amon.This is the fateful, final moment, and it never feels as if you can lose.

In Wings of Liberty, meanwhile, one vision of the future pits the last of the Protoss in an unwinnable battle against an endless stream of Zerg. Heroes die. They bravely sacrifice. They speak of the legacy they must leave behind, even if their culture ends. There are strains of true heroism. This also might say something about the sort of dread threat the Zerg present in the gamer's mind. It's tense, and sad, and emotional, everything that almost the rest of the Starcraft 2 series is not.

Protip: Don't Die.

For a narrative to succeed, it has to have stakes with emotional investment, and rarely does Starcraft 2 create that in the gamer. It parades one-note, shallow character templates across the screen, performing bold speeches that just become tiresome. It removes the fear of the endless Zerg and their threat to all existence in a tensionless final battle during which Sarah becomes divine. Even if this story is about aliens, it still needs to connect to the human emotions and desires of its audience. Starcraft 2, unfortunately, does not.

Jason Luthor is the author of the Amazon contest winning FLOOR 21, a science fiction dystopian novel that tells the story of the last of humanity as it struggles to live at the top of an apartment tower, safe from horrific threats in the floors below. You can buy it here.