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The Big Three: The Evolution of StarCraft's Zerg, Terran, and Protoss

Cover Story: How Blizzard's major races grew over the course of a decade, and what it meant for strategy.

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f you want proof that games are living art, always shifting, changing, and taking on new forms, look no further than StarCraft's Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg.

Today we know them as the avatars of balance in real-time strategy; three unique but equally matched races, each with their own style of play. But fans who have been around since StarCraft's original release will likely remember the Reaver Drops; the persistent turtling on the part of Terran players; and the many, many Zergling rushes. I was there with them, and I remember.

All three have their roots in what was arguably Warcraft II's biggest failing -- its race parity. So long as the Orcs and Humans were relatively simple mirrors of one another, Command & Conquer fans would be able to claim that their favored strategy game was better, because the factions were more diverse (if not really balanced in the least). So came the three factions that ultimately defined StarCraft, and even real-time strategy.

On the face of it, they actually aren't that unique, as each represents science fiction archetypes that have been around since at least the 1950s. The Terrans and the Zerg, for instance, would not be out of place in Robert Heinlein's seminal Starship Troopers, or possibly Alien (there are certainly no shortage of Aliens references). The Terrans are power armor wearing space marines, while the Zerg are essentially bugs or Xenomorphs, with a dash of the Civil War and a bit of Locutus of Borg added for good measure.

The Protoss, meanwhile, are essentially space elves. Haughty and aloof, they are highly-advanced, practically immortal, and ready to wipe humans from the face of the galaxy to get rid of the swarm. They could be Tolkien's elves, or if you prefer, the Minbari.

Their main strength, at least at first, was that they looked cool. Right from the beginning, Blizzard encouraged you to take sides by producing three separate variants of the StarCraft box art, each one featuring a unique unit from one of the three races. For the most part, it worked. I immediately adopted the Terrans as my race and my friend went for the Zerg. They were so distinct that it was hard not to pick a favorite. But even early on, picking a faction meant more than siding with your favorite art style. In a way, it was representation of who you were as a gamer, and how you approach your strategy.

From the beginning, each faction was tailored to encourage certain play-styles. The Terrans leaned toward defense; the Zerg swarmed and overwhelmed opponents; and the Protoss had expensive but powerful units. If there was a problem, it was that the races weren't what you would call fully-developed, even then. Right from the beginning, the Terrans seemed to be at a disadvantage, at least in part because they were the most "newbie friendly" race. To wit, an industry colleague and I were talking about our first experiences with StarCraft not too long ago. Like me, he had chosen the Terrans, since they were the most familiar race. Being a Command & Conquer nut, his first instinct was to build up to the top of the tech tree behind an elaborate series of fortifications. His opponent, meanwhile, responded by capturing every mineral field on the map and smashing him to pieces. This happened a lot.

It wasn't just sheer incompetence holding the Terrans back though. Marines, which were meant to form the backbone of the Terran army, were relatively weak. Missile turrets did negligible damage against Zerg flyers. But more importantly, no one really knew how to play the Terrans. It would be years before viable Terran strategies began to crop up, not the least because they were dismissed almost from the start as the weakest faction.

Of the three, the Zerg were probably in the best position to dominate early. Units like the flying Mutalisk and the Hydralisk were both cheap and powerful, and they could rapidly overwhelm even a well-prepared Terran player. Inevitably, they would start raiding my mineral line, and I would have no response. Even a bunker wasn't really enough to stop them. Meanwhile, the Zerg would expand and grab up all of the mineral patches; and once they were impossibly rich, they would crush me with Guardians that could out-range every weapon in my arsenal.

Even the mighty Zerg weren't all the way there though. The basic unit -- the Zergling -- could be quite powerful in packs, but the adrenal gland upgrade that made them exceptionally fast and vicious was bugged and didn't work properly. And anyway, most people weren't really thinking in terms of "strategy." They were thinking about how to produce a handful of Zerglings and blitz their opponent into submission.

Those were the dominant strategies in those early days; Protoss players relied on the Reaver Drop, and Zerg players loved the Zergling Rush. If those didn't work out, you would see more advanced units like the High Templar and Guardians. But the Protoss in particular loved their Reaver Drops. All it took to succeed was one shuttle, a Reaver, and a lot of clicking. The reason it worked so well was that the Reaver would launch one of its devastating shots as soon as it hit the ground, after which it could be pulled back into the shuttle before the enemy could retaliate. I remember one player bragging that he had gotten it to the point that you couldn't even see the Reaver. All you would see would be a single energy shot obliterating your Marines, Hydralisks, or workers.

This dynamic persisted for the first several months of gameplay. Advanced strategies were relatively rare; cheating was extremely common, and a lot of the units were flat out useless, among them the Protoss Dragoon (wrong damage type), the Carrier (not enough damage), Photon Cannons (wrong damage type again), and Vulture bike (damage type, you're probably sensing a theme here). It wasn't until Brood War arrived that the races evolved into something like the form that we recognize today, which may qualify it as the most successful expansion of all time.

With Brood War, each race received at least one crucial upgrade. Medics made Marines more durable, and missile upgrades enabled Goliaths to take down Guardians at range. The Protoss received the permanently cloaked Dark Templar, and the Zerg likewise received a stealth unit of their own in the Lurker, which could attack while buried. It was around this time that StarCraft began to explode in PC Bangs throughout South Korea, and with the influx of new players came new strategies.

Zergling Rushes would remain in force for pretty much the duration of the game's lifespan; but as players became more sophisticated, so did their strategies. By 2000, the Terrans had a champion of their own in Lim Yo Hwan, known as the "Terran Emperor" for being the foremost Terran progamer, and for his heavy role in developing early strategies such as the Tank Drop. The Zerg and the Protoss similarly gained their own representatives, and their clashes would become legendary in the eSports community.

After that, it became an arms race of sorts between the different races. The Zerg were better than the Terrans for a while, but then Choi Yun Sung, better known as iloveoov, invented "The Fantasy Build," which allowed the humans to bring their armor to bear on maps where it wouldn't normally be feasible. The Protoss likewise developed their own techniques for defeating the other two races, many of which exploit their powerful opening units -- the Zealot and the Dragoon.

They're like the fighters in Street Fighter; their individual quirks defining who they are and how they relate to their foes.

With StarCraft II, all three races gained new units and new looks, with the Terran and Protoss rushing out to an early advantage over the once-powerful Zerg. Things have leveled out a bit since then though, especially with high-level players constantly developing new strategies for money tournaments. Even with the new units though, their identities have remained largely the same. It's just that they've come more into focus over the years.

It's for that reason that the Protoss, Zerg, and Terrans are some of the richest, most interesting factions ever developed for a video game. They're like the fighters in Street Fighter; their individual quirks defining who they are and how they relate to their foes. By extension, these races have had a measurable impact on their players, both defining them and being defined by them.

True, it wasn't always clear what they would become in the early going, not the least because neither Blizzard nor its fanbase had any idea what StarCraft would ultimately become. But as these races matured within the context of StarCraft's strategy, so did real-time strategy as a whole. As such, their story has almost nothing to do with the Xel'naga and space rednecks and everything else in their respective histories, and everything to do with how they've come to defined strategy gaming.

The next chapter of that story will be in Heart of the Swarm, which aims to follow in the footsteps of Brood War and possibly revive competitive StarCraft II play in the face of strong competition from League of Legends. As always, the root of StarCraft II's appeal will be in the relationships between its respective races. I look forward to seeing what's next for them.

Kat Bailey

Kat Bailey is a freelance writer based in the Bay Area. While fond of studying the strategy of StarCraft, she remains rather average at the game itself. She looks forward to jumping back into StarCraft II with Heart of the Swarm now that she actually has a computer than can play it.