Since Starcraft II is Blizzard's next impending release (Wings of Liberty, the first of the three-part release, will ship in the first half of 2010), plenty of specifics were announced at Blizzcon over the past weekend. For instance, Battlestar Galactica's blondest cylon, Tricia Helfer, will be the voice for zerg villainess Kerrigan. Contrary to a previous announcement that LAN play wouldn't be supported, Blizzard is looking into ways to include it. The game's mandatory online interface, battle.net, will be partly monetized by letting players charge for custom content like player-made maps, with a cut of the proceeds going to Blizzard.

But the real reason to get excited about Starcraft II is clear in the above demo of the game's editor (thanks for thinkingork for the link). It's easy to forget that Blizzard's last real time strategy game, Warcraft III, was revolutionary for what was accomplished with the editor. The core game was just the beginning. It provided RPG style campaigns, full-blown mods with new units, and even entirely new types of gameplay that have since become their own genres. Warcraft III was to real time strategy games what the Gutenberg Press was to books.

And based on the above demo of the Starcraft II editor, Blizzard seems intent on continuing that trend. So those of us who look at Starcraft II and see a mostly conventional RTS should keep in mind that we're just seeing the tip of what's going to be a very large iceberg.