StarCraft was the game of my childhood and I’ve been expecting StarCraft II for several years now. Although the game was announced in 2007, Blizzard started working on it in 2003. Now we’re in 2009, and the game is far from being released so you do the math. StarCraft II should have been here, but it’s not so you might be wondering what is delaying the game so much. Well, the answer is simple: World of Warcraft.

According to Rob Pardo, the development of the StarCraft II was delayed with at least one year because the people working at the game were re-assigned and had to work at WoW. Blizzard’s Vice President of game design also said that they have a playable version for StarCraft II as of late 2005. StarCraft II was delayed because Blizzard assigned their most experienced workers to deal with the WoW problems and they’ve done their duty.

Most of the people who were working at StarCraft II including lead-produce, Chris Sigaty, were called off. Sigaty said that they “got sucked” into WoW but they managed to build a playable version of StarCraft II. Due to testing and balancing reasons, the StarCraft team decided to design the multiplayer side of the game first.

The “legitimately playable” multiplayer version was completed in late 2005, and Pardo is proud that they didn’t take a “dramatic left turn” meaning that they didn’t have to go back to the drawing board. Pardo said that StarCraft 2 is the first that didn’t require major changes from the early plans. Starcraft 2 is a great project, and Blizzard is very happy of how the things are going.

In conclusion Pardo wanted to underline the fact that the singleplayer mode of the StarCraft 2 was a bigger challenge than the multiplayer version as the design is very different. Hopefully, will see a final product soon as I cannot wait for it anymore!

via EuroGamer