StarCraft: Ghost

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StarCraft: Ghost
The logo for StarCraft: Ghost.
Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment Nihilistic Software Swingin' Ape Studios
Designer(s)	Dave Maldonado Chris Metzen Jacob Stephens
Series	StarCraft
Engine	Proprietary
Platform(s)	To be confirmed
Release date	Indefinitely postponed
Genre(s)	Stealth, action
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

StarCraft: Ghost is a military science fiction stealth-action video game under development by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft series, the game was originally announced in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, the Xbox and the PlayStation 2, developed by Nihilistic Software.^[1] However, the game's development has been marred by multiple setbacks, internal rewrites and complete technology restarts. The development team was completely changed, moving from Nihilistic Software to Swingin' Ape Studios, under whom the GameCube version was cancelled. Eventually, Blizzard Entertainment announced in March 2006 that the game was put on indefinite hold while the company investigated seventh generation video game console possibilities.

Unlike its real-time strategy predecessor StarCraft, Ghost was designed to be a tactical third-person shooter, giving players a closer and more personal view of the StarCraft universe. Following Nova, a Terran psychic espionage operative called a ghost, the game was set four years after the conclusion of StarCraft: Brood War, covering a conspiracy with a secretive military project being conducted by Nova's superiors in the imperial Terran Dominion. Although very little of the actual storyline for the game has been released, a novel covering the backstory for the game's central character, StarCraft Ghost: Nova, was published after the game's postponement in November 2006.

The continued delay of Ghost caused it to be labelled as vaporware, and it was ranked fifth in the 2005 edition of Wired News' annual vapourware awards.^[2] Although Blizzard Entertainment refuses to list it as such,^[3] many of the industry's journalism outlets such as IGN and GameSpot now list Ghost as cancelled.^[4][5]

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Multiplayer 2 Synopsis 3 Development 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

StarCraft: Ghost's stealth-based gameplay meant that for large portions of the game, the player's character Nova would be sneaking to get to objectives, using darkness and shadows to remain undetected. The player would also have been equipped with a personal cloaking device, which allowed for temporary concealment under most circumstances although some hostile non-player characters had access to devices and abilities that render cloaking useless.^[6] Nova was also equipped with a special EMP device for disabling electronics and vehicles, as well as thermal imaging goggles. Despite the focus on the stealth elements of the game, Ghost would also have included a substantial combat system. A small arsenal of weaponry was planned, including assault and sniper rifles, grenades, shotguns and flamethrowers.^[7] In addition, Nova could engage in hand-to-hand combat, and could use these skills to quietly eliminate enemy threats if undetected. However, once alerted, enemy characters would begin to hunt for the player, setting up traps and firing blind in an effort to penetrate Nova's cloaking device. Nova was shown to be highly agile and acrobatic, able to perform a variety of maneuvers, such as mantling and climbing ledges, hanging from pipes or sliding down ziplines.^[6] In addition, it was planned that the player would have access to use a small number of psionic powers given to Nova, honed through her training as a ghost agent, such as drastically improving her speed and reflexes, or powers augmented by her equipment, such as the cloaking device.^[8] Vehicles also were intended to form a crucial part of the game, with many vehicle units in the real-time strategy games of the series being depicted. Some vehicles, such as space battlecruisers and starfighters only had support roles, while other vehicles could be directly piloted by the player, such as hoverbikes, scout cars or futuristic siege tanks.^[9]

[edit] Multiplayer

Multiplayer in StarCraft: Ghost would have departed considerably from the stealth-based mechanics of the single-player side of the game, instead aiming to bring players a personal view of the battles in the real-time strategy games. Accordingly, Ghost's multiplayer was structured around class-based team gameplay, fighting in a variety of game modes. Ghost incorporated the traditional game modes in multiplayer video games, such as deathmatch, capture the flag and king of the hill,^[10] but it was also going to introduce two game modes specifically designed for the StarCraft universe. The first of these was "capture the base", which involved the teams fighting for control of a single Terran military factory, which has the ability of limited and slow atmospheric flight. Using vehicles and team tactics, both teams would attempt first board the structure and then to capture the control room to fly it to the team's starting point. The structure is then landed and would be defended from capture by the opposing team for a set amount of time.^[10] The second game mode was "invasion", in which the teams fight for control of mineral resource nodes, one of the key resources in the real-time strategy games. The teams gain points over time for sequentially capturing the nodes, which they could then use for purchasing other classes and vehicles.^[11] In all team-based game modes, both teams were intended to have access to four Terran classes: light infantry, marine, firebat and ghost. The light infantry class had minimal armour but a larger range of weapons,^[12] while the marine was a heavily armoured soldier armed with an assault rifle and grenades.^[13] The firebat was a heavy marine armed with a flamethrower and napalm rockets.^[14] Lastly, the ghost was a variation of Nova's character in single-player, with a cloaking device, thermal vision, EMP device and sniper rifle, but lacking the speed ability.^[15] Due to the size of the armour worn by marines and firebats, only ghosts and light infantry could pilot vehicles.

[edit] Synopsis

Ghost takes place in the fictional universe of the StarCraft series. Set in a distant part of the galaxy called the Koprulu sector, the series begins in the year 2499. Terran exiles from Earth are governed by an totalitarian empire, the Terran Dominion, which has formed through deceit, military might and revolution, but is opposed by several smaller rebel groups. In the midst of these events, two alien races are discovered by humanity: the insectoid Zerg, who have begun an invasion of the Terran worlds; and the Protoss, an enigmatic race of massive psionic power that is attempting to eradicate the Zerg.^[16] Ghost takes place four years after the conclusion of StarCraft: Brood War, in which the Zerg have risen as the dominant power in the sector, leaving both the Protoss and the Dominion in ruins but not destroyed.^[17] Ghost follows the story of Nova, a young ghost agent—a human espionage operative with psychic abilities—in the employ of the Dominion.

Although the game has been indefinitely postponed, the backstory for the character of Nova was released in 2006 in the novel StarCraft Ghost: Nova by Keith R. A. DeCandido. The novel was meant to accompany the game's release, but was published anyway after the cessation in development in 2006.^[18] In it, Nova is a fifteen-year old girl, daughter to one of the ruling families of the Confederacy of Man, an oppressive government that is featured in the early parts of StarCraft and is eventually overthrown by the rebels who go on to form the Dominion. Nova possesses a very high degree of psionic potential, but has been kept out of the Confederate ghost operative training program because of her father's influence. After her family is murdered by rebels, Nova loses control of her mental abilities, accidentally using them to psychically kill 300 people around her home. After fleeing and going underground, she is forced to work for an organised crime boss as an enforcer and executioner. Eventually, she is rescued by a Confederate agent investigating her disappearance in the midst of the rebel attack on the Confederate capital that sees the Confederacy's destruction. Nova is consequently acquired by the newly formed Terran Dominion, who wipe her memory and train her as a ghost agent.^[19]

Beyond the backstory for the game's central character, very little has been revealed as to the story of the game. The Terran Dominion under its emperor Arcturus Mengsk has rebuilt much of its former strength, controlling a new military aimed at countering the threat of the Zerg. In order to further bolster the effectiveness of his military, Mengsk initiates a secretive research operation codenamed Project: Shadow Blade, commanded by Mengsk's right-hand man, General Horace Warfield. The program involves using an experimental and potentially lethal gas called terrazine to enhance the genetic structure of the Dominion's psychic ghost agents. The game's site described the process as changing the agents into "shadowy superhuman beings bent on executing the will of their true master". It is into the midst of this that Nova finishes her training and is dispatched in operations against the Koprulu Liberation Front, a rebel group challenging Mengsk's empire. However, Nova's mission leads her to uncover a conspiracy involving Shadow Blade that causes her to question her loyalty to the Dominion and could upset the balance of power within the galaxy.^[20]

[edit] Development

Development on StarCraft: Ghost began in 2001 under Nihilistic Software,^[1] with the aim of releasing the game for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube during late 2003. Although the press was positive about the video game console direction taken by Ghost,^[21] the game was consistently delayed, and during the third quarter of 2004 Nihilistic Software discontinued their work with the project.^[22] Blizzard stated that Nihilistic Software had completed the tasks it had been contracted for and that the game would be delivered on time.^[23]

In July 2004, Blizzard Entertainment employed Swingin' Ape Studios to work on the game,^[24] later buying the company in May 2005.^[25] Despite much anticipation for the game being echoed by the industry's journalists,^[26] Ghost was later delayed again and pushed to September 2005. At E₃ 2005, Ghost was officially reannounced,^[27] although the GameCube version of the game was cancelled by Swingin' Ape Studios due to its lack of online support.^[28] Release was again delayed until 2006. Despite the efforts of Swingin' Ape, Ghost still failed to materialise, and eventually in March 2006 Blizzard Entertainment announced that development on Ghost would be indefinitely postponed while the company investigated new hardware options with the emerging seventh generation of video game consoles.^[29] Despite its long development history, IGN noted that the concept of Ghost still held promise.^[30] Although the game's development was suspended, Keith R. A. DeCandido's novel StarCraft Ghost: Nova was published a few months later in November.^[31]

Since the halt in Ghost's production, only sporadic news has been heard on it. At BlizzCon in 2007, StarCraft creator Chris Metzen hinted that elements of Ghost's story may appear in the recently announced StarCraft II. Metzen further stated that he believed that Ghost had an excellent storyline that may be told in future novels following from DeCandido's Nova.^[32] Earlier in June, Rob Pardo, one of the lead developers at Blizzard Entertainment, indicated that there still was an interest in finishing Ghost.^[33] At the D.I.C.E. Summit in February 2008, Blizzard's president Mike Morhaime and Rob Pardo gave a presentation on the company's history. In it they listed the games that they had cancelled, which did not include Ghost. When questioned about this, Blizzard's co-founder Frank Pearce explained that it simply was not in the company's focus at the time due to a finite amount of development resources.^[3] Despite this, many of the video games industry's journalists now list Ghost as having been cancelled.^[4][5]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Blizzard Entertainment official company site.
• Nihilistic Software official company site.

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