So. Starcraft II.

It's either the best RTS in years or a recycled piece of old tat from the 1990s with some fresh make-up.

Are the criticisms of SC2 fair? I'm not convinced.

Been there, done that.

To young eyes, SC2 isn't innovative. If you've played the original Starcraft then SC2 isn't dramatically different. To some, that's bad - 12 years later and we're playing virtually the same game? Crazy!

But why change it? Starcraft is a winning formula - few games are played and loved by millions more than a decade after they are released. Starcraft is one of those...so why change it?

Those of you that are really old (or marketing students) will remember New Coke - there was nothing wrong with "old" Coke, yet they went ahead and changed the formula. It turned out to be a huge disaster for Coca Cola...and they had to change back as the public revolted. I'd expect Starcraft to be no different - Millions would be up in arms (RealID, anyone?) if they messed with the core gameplay mechanics.

Viva la revolucíon!

Change is good. Since Starcraft we've seen development of some truly great RTS games - the Total War series, Dawn of War, Dawn of War II, Company of Heroes (I feel like I should just say "Relic's back catalogue"). I'm not going to include Supreme Commander - although it does the zooming in and out, it's still just 1997's Total Annihilation at its heart.

Change is good. Dawn of War encouraged players to get out of their bases and play aggressively to take and hold ground, Company of Heroes then built on that by making it even more focused through the different types of resource points to hold. The Total War series has brought realism and simulation to a genre that has been typified by games that often avoided realism the further back in time they went.

Battle Royale

But change has to be necessary: Let's compare the Dawn of War series to the Supreme Commander series. In their original incarnations they were both very "traditional" RTSs - gather resources, build a base, build units then attack the enemy - while they both had unique selling points, at their hearts they weren't that new.

So let's consider their respective sequels. Relic could have easily made DoW2 more of the same - DoW was an excellent game that was very popular, particularly as it was the first GW licensed game to have critical and commercial success (Fire Warrior, anyone?). However, they didn't - they utterly changed it into a RTS/RPG hybrid, whose only real connection to its predecessor was the universe in which it was set. Why risk having your sequel getting lost amongst a sea of other RTS games?

Yet, DoW2 was a top quality game, and if anything, more of a sequel to Company of Heroes than Dawn of War. They took a successful game system (CoH) and mixed in bits of DoW with the 40k setting. At its heart, Relic was playing safe with the mechanics of the game.

But let's move on to Supreme Commander 2. On the surface, it's nearly the same as Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance - Big armies, simple resource gathering, plenty of destruction. Yet, they had changed nearly every mechanic in the game: units were researched/upgraded, not tiered; the economy/construction tweaked to make the player work within their means; the special units were made cheaper and less powerful (arguably less special) - All these little changes fundamentally undermined the successful core mechanics of Supreme Commander. Individually, any of those changes would not have been too bad, but as a package they thoroughly wrecked the game.

Safety first

In conclusion, a game needs to work with an underlying mechanic that is going to be successful. Sequels do not have to usher in sweeping changes if there is no reason to do so. Blizzard may be playing safe, it may get looked down upon by many, but it works.