Gamespot interviewed Dustin Browder to talk about StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

There was one enigmatic question that is surely going to stun fans. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is pretty far along in development.

Not all missions are as polished as those shown at the press event, and even those need some more work. However, Browder played around with the idea of Diablo III and Heart of the Swarm shipping around the same time (maybe, maybe not?). Dustin Browder is a tease when asked what the release window for Heart of the Swarm is: “We don’t know; almost really not this year.” — wait … did he say: (almost really?)

Quick Recap of the interview:

  • Main theme of Heart of the Swarm narrowed down to: Fury, Revenge, Hatred.
  • Plans to upgrade units and add new units
  • Battle.net: Blizzard considering shoutcasting features
  • Custom Mod UI to be refined with better filter searches: most popular, most-played, newest mods.
  • About 70 developers working on Heart of the Swarm’s User Interface and game content. Other half working on patches.
  • Unclear if Lurker returns or replaces its cloak and attack features with a new unit.
  • Aiming for about 20 hours of single-player gameplay
  • 20 Missions means cheaper expansion retail price.
  • Cameos from characters in StarCraft and Brood War. (Samir Duran hinted)
  • No one is working on StarCraft: Ghost, but Browder hopes it’s developed someday.

GSA: With the level on the snow-heavy Kaldir being shown on the first time on the StarCraft II engine, what else can players expect in terms of new stages and hazards?

DB: We’re doing everything we can to bring players into the weird exotic places in the StarCraft II universe. We’re definitely not going to bring Kerrigan over to farm areas like Raynor was in back in Wings of Liberty. I don’t know where we’re all going to be yet, but we’re working really hard on [figuring out locations for Kerrigan’s revenge trip]. [We’re brainstorming to ourselves] “Can we go to strange exotic gas giants? Can we go to the frozen and hot worlds? Can we go to the forbidden areas where the Zergs were first formed? Can we go to that top secret Dominion labs?” — Read the whole interview