Metzen describes the early days as 'Donkey Kong Country.' That is to say, it was an era in video games when stories didnвЂ™t play the sort of role they do today. 'It was such a purer time, such a simpler time.' 'Back then, вЂHey, letвЂ™s make a space game!вЂ™ It was about that simple,' says Metzen. Once theyвЂ™d settled on a direction, off they went. Blizzard was an easy ship to steer, he says. Metzen echoes this sentiment, but in a slightly different way. 'I remember it being a whirlwind,' Sigaty says. Some nights heвЂ™d wind up sleeping on the floor at the office trying to keep up with the fast pace of game development. Despite having no formal training and an unrelated college major, he rerouted his goals to find a better career fit there.

The self-described super nerd found himself enthralled with the gaming space. One summer during his scholarship days at USC, he took a testing job to earn some extra cash. He stumbled into his first StarCraft job as a 20-something. Sigaty, too, traveled a long road to get here. His tone is slow and measured, exactly like that of a patient dad - perhaps because he is one. But the illusion can't hold up to Sigaty in motion today, a man who speaks in soft, soothing tones and sits with his hands neatly folded. Metzen describes Sigaty as a 'metal god,' and for a moment, the image fits, if only for the long, rocker hair that seems better fitted for a stage than a game developer. Eventually, theyвЂ™d work together on WarCraft 3 and bond over music. With Sigaty over in the QA department, the two didnвЂ™t get much time together. At the time, he had the 'high and tight' look about him, Metzen says. Sigaty was the lead tester on StarCraft and fresh out of the navy. Metzen recalls that it was in these early days when he met Chris Sigaty, who now serves as StarCraftвЂ™s executive producer. The singing itself might have been bad - and, according to those who were there, it sometimes was - but it was a chance for people to hang out. On Thursdays, a shifting group of anywhere from 10 to 20 people would gather at PatsyвЂ™s, a local Irish pub, to sing karaoke. Then, the team was small by BlizzardвЂ™s standards today, with maybe around 50 people. 'What the hell a writer doing in the video games industry at the time? There was no precedent for that. 'When we developed the first StarCraft I was a writer in the video games industry,' Metzen recalls. The heavy lifting of seeing a story through to the end is over. With StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, Blizzard wraps up the sprawling story of Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, and a trilogy that saw its first release in 2010.Д«ut BlizzardвЂ™s time within the StarCraft universe - and, more specifically, StarCraft 2 - is hardly finished. The history of StarCraft is a long one, spanning a 17-year saga of multiple games, expansions within the universe and at least one major canned project.

I canвЂ™t imagine it not being StarCraft now.' But ainвЂ™t it funny how, over time, words become powerful? They just take on their own identity. I didnвЂ™t like Diablo either, in my own space. 'StarCraft?' Metzen says of his reaction at the time. Blizzard christened the newborn project StarCraft - with some slight reservations about that name. These were the broad questions that Bloodlines had so desperately lacked. What are their cultures? How do they relate to one another in battle? What are their fighting styles? How do they respawn their units? Much of the gameвЂ™s concept focused on three distinct races finding balance between these three would define its personality. Metzen, and ultimately Blizzard, decided to pursue a new RTS project. A statue of Jim Raynor in the Blizzard officesД«loodlines, which Metzen wouldnвЂ™t talk about publicly until the 2013 release of coffee table book, The Art of Blizzard Entertainment, folded into the seams of BlizzardвЂ™s future titles - mostly World of Warcraft.

Starcraft 2 push to talk key