Tribute: Blizzard Entertainment

Some of my fondest memories as a gamer go back 12 years, when my friends and I would spend hours at a stretch glued to his television set, playing the most awesome game ever (back then) – Rock N’ Roll Racing, on the Super Nintendo. The game was more than just a racer, and was unlike anything I’d played back then. When I think about it now, it was one of the few titles that were way ahead of their time; you could race your ass off in the isometric view the game used, while blowing up your competition using a weapon mounted on your car, which could be upgraded as you collected cash from winning races – the game was close to perfect, and I played it day in and day out for quite a while. But as time passed by, the game reduced to not more than a fond memory.

Now many years (and games) later, we at tech2 have decided to do a weekly tribute to some of our favorite game developers, games etc so naturally the first name that came to my mind was none other than Blizzard Entertainment – a developer with a flawless record behind some of the greatest real-time strategy games of all time (yeah sue me, I’m a Blizzard fanboy). While doing some research on their history, I stumbled upon something that was quite surprising, in a good way - it turns out that Blizzard, the company that created my favorite RTS games, was the great studio behind Rock N’ Roll Racing as well! Back in 1991 a company named Silicon & Synapse was founded by 3 dudes – Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce. Under the banner of Silicon & Synapse, only two games were developed - Rock N’ Roll Racing and another title called The Lost Viking. In 1994 the company changed their name to Chaos studio, but after realizing that another studio with the same name existed, they changed their name to Blizzard Entertainment.

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And so a legend was born… errr! let me rephrase that… and so the legendary studio finally had a name. Blizzard Entertainment has a record which no other game developer can boast of – all its titles, yes! every one of its titles under its new banner have been best sellers. I guess the reason for this is that the guys in Blizzard’s roster are perfectionists. The perfection reflects in every aspect of their games, be it the storyline, the gameplay or the cut-scenes. The studio has a habit of overshooting release dates, giving it enough time to polish their games until they’re oozing class churning out stuff that’s well worth your time and money. Another one of Blizzard’s trademarks is the subtle humor they inject through out their games, with references to previous titles. For instance, in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, if you click on any unit repeatedly they say some pretty funny stuff – like the acolyte says “My life for Aiur… err… I mean, Ner’zhul” (Aiur is a planet in StarCraft).

Right, enough on their history; let’s take a look at the three series that made these guys legends (and multi billionaires)…

Warcraft (1994-2007)

In 1994 Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and this is what brought the RTS genre into the limelight. The game introduced us to the rich world of Azeroth where unlike other RTSes the key characters had an individual personality, and its storyline had a good amount of depth upon which a whole successful series could be based. Wasting no time, Blizzard got cracking on a sequel called Warcraft II – Tides of Darkness, which they dished out in 1995. The game was a huge success just like its predecessor and this time around all eyes were on Blizzard, to see what they do next.

A year later, an expansion pack named Beyond the Dark Portal followed, which helped deepen the storyline even further by introducing Warcraft fans to the Outlands, where things were a lot different from the usual settings used in the game. Seven years later Blizzard gave us Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, which is still amongst the best and most played RTS games out there. This game was brilliant as it broke away from the units hoarding style gameplay of your everyday RTS and focused more on small skirmishes rather than large scale war. The greatness of the single-player campaign was unparalleled, with a storyline that would draw in even the most ardent fantasy-setting haters. The cut-scenes, as usual, were truly drool-worth and jaw-dropping to the point that they’d grip anyone who saw them, and compel them to play the game. The game caught on like wild fire with the online gaming community as well, thanks to Blizzard’s brilliant online gaming platform, Battle.Net which had evolved to state of near-perfection since the Diablo days. The system worked magnificently, allowing Blizzard to build a very sturdy online Warcraft III community. The game’s multiplayer was so well crafted and balanced that it got picked up by the World Cyber Games, becoming one of the most competitive RTSes out there.
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If that wasn’t enough, in 2003 Blizzard continued the Warcraft legacy with Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, an expansion which as usual was a raging hit among the masses; in fact it did so well it even managed to secure a slot for itself in the World Cyber Games besides the original. After this Blizzard blessed us with the game that literally changed the way people looked at MMORPGS with World of Warcraft. A lot of gamers were skeptical about how well it would do, since with a project this huge, it’s not too hard to screw up but I for one had no doubt in Blizzard’s capability of delivering every time. They took their time in developing the game, and carefully planned each feature but even then with a project this large there are bound to be certain imperfections. The game had some stability issues when it was released, but all that was fixed (to an extent) in good time. The game did so well with the masses that subscription base kept growing, thanks to the fact that Blizzard kept pumping in additional content every month to keep fans pleased. The subscription base has actually crossed 8 million, and it keeps growing steadily to this day! The expansion pack ‘The Burning Crusade’ was launched on 16th January 2007, and it sold over 2.4 million copies on the first day alone!

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StarCraft (1998)

StarCraft was equally if not more successful that Warcraft. The story is based in a futurist setting where an intergalactic war where three races are locked in war – the Terran, the Zerg and the Protoss. Each race played extremely differently and had their unique strengths and weaknesses. The Terran relied on sheer firepower, the Zerg overwhelmed their enemies with their numbers, while the Protoss used their superior knowledge of science to decimate their foes. The game had the trademark breathtaking cut-scenes that Blizzard is renowned for, along with a very intriguing plot. The thing I liked about the game was the way the single-player campaign unfolds. Unlike most games that are developed by other companies where the race you select to play invariably ends up victorious in the entire war, StarCraft had an extremely well written linear storyline, which made you play all the races equally. And stories that revolve around intergalactic wars usually end up seeming pretty cheesy, but that wasn’t the case with StarCraft. They managed to accomplish this by planting each race which key characters, that seemed very true to life thanks to the well done voice acting and the ingeniously written script.

The game grew to cult-status in no time, much like Blizzards other titles and like Warcraft, its online play was unmatched; the game’s multiplayer mode grew popular real quick (again, thanks to Battle.Net), and was picked for the World Cyber Games too. In the same year (1998) Blizzard released an expansion pack for StarCraft, called Broodwar. Needless to say, the game lived up to fans’ expectations and surpassed them. Although there’s no word on another installment in the series yet, but let’s hope we see StarCraft 2 in the near future.

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Diablo (1996 – 2001)

Like Warcraft was responsible for popularizing the RTS genre, Diablo did so for RPGs. This dark-fantasy themed dungeon crawler had a universal appeal and converted a lot of action gamers into RPGists. The gameplay was largely hack-n-slash, which usually gets quite monotonous in other games. In Diablo however, the game always stayed fresh thanks to an exponential skill tree system which lured you to play that extra bit more in order to gain a new skill. The game allowed you to play as one of three classes – Sorcerer, Rogue and Warrior. Although the class system wasn’t too definitive (meaning a Warrior could learn Sorcerer spells etc.) and there were few restrictions, it provided a good amount of variety.

In Diablo II however (which released in 2000), the classes were more defined, and the gameplay seemed fine-tuned. Coupled with the game’s great visuals (for the time) and the huge fan following from the original, the game did really well for itself. The new classes included this time were the Necromancer, the Paladin and the Amazon.

There’s not much word about a Diablo III yet, since the studio that developed the original and sequel, Blizzard North, has shut down. However, I doubt that Blizzard will let the series slip by that easy, and I have still have hope of seeing a sequel… someday.