Star Craft II Zerk first look

[source: ign.com]



Dustin Browder, lead designer on Star Craf II, took the stage at Blizzard's studio in Irvine, California to present the Zerg race to North American and European game media, giving us a brief overview of what's new and what's changed. While no storyline details were really revealed, the start of the trailer we were shown featured a voice over by Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, exclaiming, "We are the swarm" and "We are becoming much, much more." We'll have to wait to find out exactly what that means in terms of narrative.

So far, the following units are confirmed for StarCraft II's Zerg race. Blizzard pointed out that since StarCraft II is still pre-alpha, most things are subject to change.

Hydralisk
Lurker
Zergling
Baneling
Overseer
Overlord
Queen
Drone
Larva
Roach
Nydus Worm
Infestor
Mutalisk
Corruptor
Ultralisk

If that list means nothing to you, we'll try and fill you in. One of the more notable changes about the Zerg is the elimination of their traditional base defenses. No longer will drones construct air and ground type defense structures. Instead, the whole system will be overseen by the retooled Queen unit.
A single Queen can be built from your hatchery as soon as a drone sets up a spawning pool, a tier one structure that allows for Zerglings to spawn. The Queen is a menacing unit to begin with, but will become more so when you increase her physical size by upgrading your hatchery to tiers two and three. Along with the imposing physical growth, the Queen gains new skills with each tier upgrade. Initially she functions as a basic base defense unit, able to attack air and ground units. She can drop creep tumors into the ground to extend the Zerg's filthy ground slime, lay clutches of eggs in creep that hatch and attack when the base is in danger, and drop down structures called Shriekers that work to detect enemy units and extend the range of the defenders that spawn from the eggs.After upgrading your base she gets even more powerful, gaining the ability to create toxic creep, which does damage over time to defenders, and she can instantly heal structures for several hundred hit points and spawn base-defense insects. She'll also get an instant-travel ability that allows her to burrow instantly to any part of the map covered in creep, letting her quickly travel to the aid of any base expansion. There is about a 15 second cooldown on this ability, however, so it can't be spammed.Overlords, a floating Zerg unit that determines unit cap, no longer have transport or detection abilities. Transport is now given the responsibility of Nydus Worms, and Overlords need to be upgraded to Overseers to detect. After the upgrade, Overseers gain an increased detection range the longer they remain still. As for Overlord abilities, they can generate creep as well as slime and thereby disable a resource node or observation tower.As far as new units go, we've so far got some hands-on time with the Roaches, which are ground units with a remarkably quick regeneration rate and are capable of attacking land and air. With a group of only six we were able to take down several Terran Thors (massive walking tanks) without a single unit loss. It seems Roaches can be defeated only through concentrated fire, and even then attackers still have to contend with their burrowing ability.Then there's the Corruptor, an air-to-air unit that can turn any unit it attacks into a friendly. With a group of these together it's possible to quickly corrupt units like Terran Battlecruisers and Protoss Motherships. On the ground, units called Infestors can move while burrowed, allowing them to sneak into enemy bases, pop up, and blast corrupting bile at enemy structures. Once a structure such as a Terran barracks is corrupted, it'll start churning out infested Marines until the ability times out.As seen before, players can also mutate Zerglings into Banelings, which are basically suicide units that perform kamikaze runs into opposing bases or burrow, essentially functioning as land mines. The Ultralisk, a massive Zerg melee unit, has been tweaked in the sequel, now possessing the ability to burrow. Its monstrous mandible blade attacks now do area damage as well, making it even more deadly. And that's it for now. We'll have more on how the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran factions have changed in this latest StarCraft II build as we continue to play at Blizzard's studio.