In both the digital and retail world, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm has managed to successfully Zerg-rush a little over 1 million PC/Mac users in a 48 hour time window. Heart of the Swarm is the first expansion to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (which managed to sell 1.5 million in the same time window), putting you in the shoes of Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of all things Zerg (does the Queen of Blades even wear shoes?).
Essentially, Kerrigan’s just really pissed off at this guy Mengsk for abandoning her during a mission that took place in the first StarCraft that made her who she is now. So, naturally, all she wants to do is get even — as in bring the millions of Zerg forces down on his head.
Even when you combine the two StarCraft II titles, they still don’t match the history-making launch of Blizzard’s other long-anticipated sequel, Diablo III, which sold 3.5 million copies in one day. That’s not to diminish the impressive figure that Heart of the Swarm has achieved and Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime had this to say about it:
“We want to thank the global StarCraft community for the incredible passion and support they’ve shown for Heart of the Swarm…In addition to a brand-new single-player campaign, we added a ton of enhancements with this expansion to make StarCraft II even more fun to play, and more exciting to watch. We’re pleased to see gamers and eSports fans around the world enjoying Heart of the Swarm.”
I’m very curious to see how the community latches onto the title. From what I’ve played so far, the campaign is a fun and varied experience but we all know that the real reason StarCraft is a phenomenon is because of its multiplayer. StarCraft players tend to be very vocal about any changes to the formula, so seeing how they respond to StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm‘s tweaks will be interesting, especially given that the audience is a large one already.