It was back at BlizzCon 2011 where Blizzard first unveiled the new units that will feature in the upcoming StarCraft 2 expansion; Heart of the Swarm. A few things have changed since 2011, now with HotS playable at this weekend’s Major League Gaming spring championship, Blizzard have released a unit update video to show exactly what the new units are capable of.
Some of the bigger changes…
Terran – The shredder has been replaced with the widow mine, the factory built unit can move by itself and once burrowed underground will jump to nearby enemy units and explode after a period of time. The Warhound is back but instead of acting like a mini Thor with anti-air missiles, it now acts as an anti-mechanical unit that targets only ground units.
Protoss – The Protoss Replicant has been removed (who didn’t see that coming?), whilst the Tempest is no longer a splash damage air-to-air ship, instead it is an all purpose long ranged unit that can attack both air and ground. The Protoss also retain the Mothership Core as a multi-purpose defensive option, whilst the Oracle is a raiding support unit that can lock down an enemies mineral patches and offers the cloaking option which the new Mothership lacks.
Zerg – The Zerg remain mostly unchanged, the Ultralisk still has a charged burrow, the swarm host still spits out free units until killed, and the viper retains most of the abilities first advertised with the small change of being able to gain energy by sapping a friendly building.
You can check out all the new units in the video below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4nNfZwwhYg&list=UUZ2h0d4tP0R8klduwj-_bDQ&index=2&feature=plcp[/youtube]
If you think the video above is nice but really want to see the units in a match scenario, look no further than the footage below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gcs52bErU4&list=UUZ2h0d4tP0R8klduwj-_bDQ&index=1&feature=plcp[/youtube]
