I was invited to the Single Player Hands-On Gameplay event in Irvine, CA on a very short notice (Thursday, July 16th).  I was told Chris Metzen was behind my invitation. I can say I deeply thank him. I’m flattered and honored.

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To be among the first batches of fans having the opportunity to play the Starcraft II Single-Player is certainly very rewarding.  Being an all-geeky lore-nerd myself, having read most of the Starcraft novels, mangas and now subscriber of the Starcraft comic book, I can better appreciate all the clever integration of the licensed products’ printed media based on the Starcraft universe and its continuity become a reality within the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Single-Player.

The build I played had approximately 6-7 maps available out of over 30-35 missions the final product will have. My lore spider-sense tingled at least five times while playing the single player campaign, after noticing stuff that came straight out of the novels and the Starcraft: Frontline manga. These bits let me extrapolate that the entire final game will be very influenced by everything hardcore lore fans have read in the printed media.  They are fully integrated.

It will be much more rewarding to fans when they go: “Holy, I saw that in “X” and “Y” book”.  “OMG, that’s from the manga”.  You will already have the backstory of these characters, and plots. Which is a plus, in comparison to going through the missions not knowing who the characters are, or how meaningful, if at all, are certain locations or objects.

This is why World of Warcraft has been so successful.  There were millions of Warcraft II and Warcraft III players around the world by the time the MMO was launched. In the same way, all those fans who have read all the printed media will feel so close and excited with the single-player. If you haven’t yet read any of these novels and manga, you better get going to a local or online bookstore to start educating yourself in advance prior to engaging the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty single-player.

In this Starcraft II: Single Player Hands-On preview you will be glad to see 16 screenshots, an HD Video Footage, and details from the first single-player maps, achievements, upgrades, rooms and characters within the Hyperion, Mercenaries, and an exclusive interview with our beloved Blizzard VP of Creative Design: Chris Metzen.

I will now share with all of you this single-player experience from the point of view of a geeky lore-nerd. To navigate through all the pages, simply click on any of the images below to jump to the next page. Instead of links for navigation, I wanted to make this like the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign where you choose which mission to play. Get back tomorrow for the lore comprehensive article that analyzes in-depth all the lore within the novels, and manga which have been integrated within the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty single-player.

Your first page to read in this journey is my introduction: The Hyperion.