March 9, 2008 - Just about 10 years have passed since Blizzard released StarCraft, a science-fiction themed real-time strategy game that even today manages to maintain a wild degree of popularity. Last year at the company’s Worldwide Invitational (WWI) event in Seoul, South Korea, the long-awaited sequel was finally announced, and there was much rejoicing.

Blizzard has kept its thumb on the information hose so far, loosening its grip periodically to give its loyal fans and the gaming media an idea of how development is going. At WWI we saw bits and pieces of the Protoss race, then later on last year at Blizzcon 2007 the Terrans were displayed for all to see. What’s remained a mystery so far are Blizzard’s plans for the monstrous Zerg, something which we’ll finally get a chance to check out tomorrow at Blizzard’s headquarters.

What can we expect from the event? Well, we’ll go hands-on with the Zerg and will be able to provide you with information on changes to existing units along with any new ones mixed in. In addition, we’ll bring you details on how the Protoss and Terran races have changed since Blizzcon 2007, ideally along with some additional story and single-player details. Expect updates to our screenshot and video galleries as well.

And in case you haven’t been following StarCraft II at all, here’s a brief overview. Like its predecessor, the game will pits Terran (human space marines), Zerg (freakish, slimy aliens), and Protoss (more civilized aliens) against each other. Players will still build bases in the same way as the original, and still need to harvest vespene gas and minerals to fuel unit production and upgrades. Online modes will be available through battle.net and players can also head into the story-driven solo campaign, which delivers narrative a little differently than the first campaign. From what we’ve seen, players can control Jim Raynor, a Terran and celebrity in the StarCraft universe, through a sort of point-and-click mechanic like you may have seen in old-school adventure games. He can be moved throughout his starship between missions, talk with members of the crew and decide where to go next. And of course, the missions themselves will feature StarCraft’s distinctive brand of RTS gameplay.

We’ll be updating this story as the event progresses over the next two days. In the meantime, feel free to check out our previous coverage to get all caught up.