Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm has officially launched today. The game is an expansion pack adding to the original StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.
The expansion contains new units, including the Protoss Tempest, the Zerg Viper, and the Terran Widow Mine, as well as new multiplayer features, and a full-length singleplayer campaign.
The singleplayer missions center around the Zerg, just as Wings of Liberty followed Jim Raynor and the Terran. The story will track the aftermath of the events of the first game, with Kerrigan, the former Queen of Blades, having had her humanity restored. Throughout the campaign missions, players will take control of both Kerrigan as well as the Zerg, as she fights to reassemble her swarm.
Similarly to how you could perform research and upgrade your units in the original game, Heart of the Swarm will likewise feature the ability to enhance Kerrigan herself, as well as ways to tweak and evolve your Zerg units. You can even alter your units between missions to prepare for a new scenarios; such as giving your Zerglings a faster attack speed against armored targets.
Additionally, the game will contain improved multiplayer features, including groups and clans, more replay options, a better matchmaking system, and unranked matches. Blizzard is also introducing a leveling system that allows you to accumulate XP for multiplayer matches. Higher levels will unlock new portraits, decals, dances and unit skins for your account.
Lastly, Heart of the Swarm will feature a significantly enhanced StarCraft II map editor. The new improvements include advanced functionality for cinematics, better UI editing, additional animations and models, new libraries of functions, as well as an improved arcade interface to make community maps easier to find and vote on.
Heart of the Swarm is available directly from Battle.net, or through a number of other retailers.