Blizzard have been talking about Heart of the Swarm and the future of StarCraft 2, confirming that Heart of the Swarm will have its own multiplayer ladders when released, and revealing that a series of new official multiplayer maps for StarCraft 2 will arrive "in the next few weeks."
The comments were made by StarCraft 2 lead designer Dustin Browder in an interview with Games.on.net , in which he said "We are planning on releasing a bunch of new maps for StarCraft II for the multiplayer experience to address a lot of issues that are fans have raised with the current map pool."
"Hopefully that'll be happening in the next few weeks. We're also planning on releasing at some point in the near future, some more of the challenge maps that are still being worked on in people's spare time inside the studio, and get some more content into the hands of the fans," adding that "Blizzard DotA is something we're definitely actively pursuing."
Bowder was also asked how the team were planning to keep the multiplayer game balanced with the introduction of new units in Heart of the Swarm. He said "this is something we've dealt with a couple of times before, we had this problem in Brood War, we had this problem in Warcraft III and then Frozen Throne. Our current plan is to use the same solution we had for those products. There will be separate ladders, if you choose not to upgrade and continue forward with Heart of the Swarm that's totally your option, your ladder will still work and you'll be matched against people who are playing the same game that you'll be playing."
No official release date has been announced for Heart of the Swarm, but it's expected some time in 2012.
Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
