Star Craft creative director says the game and the real-world feel 'very close in terms of themes and characters' — 'When you look at the stories that were told in Star Craft and the characters that you run into, it's remarkably topical' | Tech Radar

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Star Craft creative director says the game and the real-world feel 'very close in terms of themes and characters' — 'When you look at the stories that were told in Star Craft and the characters that you run into, it's remarkably topical'

Dan Hay says it's "remarkable" how Star Craft "translates quite easily into today"

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Star Craft general manager and creative director Dan Hay says the series' stories and characters are "remarkably topical" today

Hay says Star Craft and the real world are both like a "frontier"

He adds that while Star Craft is science fiction, its "themes and characters" are very similar to "the headlines in our world"

Star Craft general manager and creative director Dan Hay has compared real-world events to the series' stories and characters, calling them "remarkably topical."

In a sit-down interview with Tech Radar Gaming following the reveal of Star Craft, a first-person, open-world shooter slated to arrive in 2030, Hay discussed the CGI trailer that debuted at Blizz Con and explained that the team wanted to portray the "tension" that will come with this new story-driven adventure.

The developer also said that building the "stakes" was just as important; he couldn't dive too much into the narrative details, but Hay touched on the series as a whole and its storylines that explore "imperfect" characters, suggesting the new Star Craft will examine similar topics.

"The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one," Hay said. "The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one. So it's not perfect, right? And that's the thing about Star Craft: a lot of the characters are not perfect; they're imperfect, and even the villains are.

"They have an idea of what you think they are at the beginning of the game, and then by the end of the game, you realize, oh, they were something completely different. And I think what's powerful about Star Craft."

Star Craft general manager says 'tension' was the key to designing a Star Craft game from a first-person perspective — 'Every shot matters. Everything you do matters'

Blizzard says Star Craft will have the same 'gritty' atmosphere and be inspired by the 'interstellar western' of the original RTS — 'Our real world has asymmetry to it, and so I think leveraging that and putting that into this world was key for us'

Star Craft general manager says the shift to open-world shooter came about because 'Every time we drew a picture or every time we talked about' the game 'it was boots on the ground every time'

Hay continued, saying that when you look at Star Craft's stories and the characters you meet, they're "remarkably topical" to the events unfolding in the real world.

"When you think about our world today, and you think about what is Star Craft? It's a bit of a frontier," he said. "It's obviously a frontier. There's asymmetry in terms of factions that don't agree with each other. There's brinkmanship going on where one faction is being used against another. [In] a lot of cases, it's just over resources.

"A lot of the cases there's politics, and there's intrigue, and there are people being left behind and betrayed, and when you look at that, and then you look at the headlines in our world, it's not super far [apart] in terms of how it feels sometimes. So you feel that tension, and you felt that tension in the teaser [trailer]."

Hay concluded: "I think what's remarkable about Star Craft is that it feels real, and it feels like it translates quite easily into today. And even though it's science fiction, and even though it has this sense of being in this other universe, it feels very close in terms of themes and characters and moments that you could experience today."

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Demi is a freelance games journalist who helps cover gaming news at Tech Radar. She's been a games writer for five years and has written for outlets such as Game Spot, NME, and Games Radar, covering news, features, and reviews. Outside of writing, she plays a lot of RPGs and talks far too much about Star Wars on X.

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Star Craft creative director says the game and the real-world feel 'very close in terms of themes and characters' — 'When you look at the stories that were told in Star Craft and the characters that you run into, it's remarkably topical'

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Star Craft general manager says 'tension' was the key to designing a Star Craft game from a first-person perspective — 'Every shot matters. Everything you do matters'

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