If you want to experience it from start to finish, it can be hard to know where to begin. This guide covers the order, the difficulty, what each campaign asks of you, practical tips and what to do afterwards.
Wings of Liberty is free to play, so you can try the start of the story before committing to the rest.
Not strictly. Wings of Liberty gives enough context to follow the story. But the original StarCraft and Brood War — free since 2017 — set up the main characters and their relationships, especially Raynor and Kerrigan. If you have time, playing them first makes the trilogy hit harder. If not, a summary video or article will do.
Expect each main campaign to take a substantial number of hours on Normal, depending on how thoroughly you complete optional objectives and how much time you spend between missions. The prologue, epilogue and Nova Covert Ops are much shorter. Altogether, it’s a big but very manageable undertaking.
The campaigns offer Casual, Normal, Hard and Brutal:
If you’ve never played an RTS, Casual or Normal is perfectly fine: the story is the point. You can change difficulty between missions, so don’t be afraid to lower it on a stubborn level and raise it again later.
Raynor leads a rebellion against the Terran Dominion and its emperor, Arcturus Mengsk, while taking contracts across the sector. Meanwhile, the Zerg return, and Raynor is drawn into a mission to save Kerrigan.
Between missions, you walk around the Hyperion, Raynor’s battlecruiser:
During missions, each one adds a twist: rising lava you must avoid, a train you must intercept, a day-and-night cycle with infected that attack in the dark, a planet about to be consumed by fire. Read the objectives before rushing — the twist is usually the key.
Mission choices also matter. At certain points, you can choose which missions to play and in what order, and a few branch the story.
Tips:
Kerrigan seeks revenge and sets out to rebuild the Zerg Swarm. It’s the most personal campaign, centred on her journey.
Kerrigan is a hero unit you control in most missions. She levels up and unlocks abilities, which you choose from several options at each tier. She’s extremely powerful and the heart of your army.
Evolution missions let you reshape your Zerg units. In each one, you try two variants of a unit in a short scenario, then choose one permanently. For example, a unit might gain the ability to split into smaller units or to leap into battle. Choose what suits your style.
Mutations are smaller upgrades you can switch freely between missions.
Tips:
It’s the most hero-focused and the fastest-paced of the three campaigns.
After the prologue, Artanis leads the Protoss to reclaim their homeworld, Aiur, and then to unite the scattered Protoss factions against an ancient enemy.
From the Spear of Adun, the Protoss arkship, you:
You can change these choices freely between missions, which makes it the most flexible campaign of the three. For many, it’s also the best-designed — we explain why in our review of Legacy of the Void.
Tips:
The epilogue brings together characters from all three races for a final confrontation. Each mission is played as a different race, and the trilogy’s story comes to a close. Play it right after Legacy of the Void — it’s the payoff for everything that came before.
A set of mission packs starring Nova, a Terran ghost agent. Set after the trilogy, it offers a smaller-scale story with its own customisation systems. It’s optional, but well made, and a good way to keep playing after the finale.
Each mission has achievements, often tied to optional challenges: completing it quickly, without losing certain units, or on Hard difficulty. They’re a great reason to replay missions once you know them.
The mission archive lets you replay any completed mission with your current upgrades, making it easy to go back for achievements or to try different strategies.
When you’re done, there’s plenty more:
The StarCraft II trilogy is one of the great achievements of the RTS genre: three campaigns with distinct identities, strong mission design and a story that ties together nearly two decades of lore. Whether you play on Casual for the story or on Brutal for the challenge, it’s well worth your time.
Start with Wings of Liberty — it’s free — and see where Raynor’s story takes you.
]]>CD Projekt began in the 1990s not as a developer but as a distributor and localiser, bringing Western PC games to Poland with high-quality translations. Its Polish version of Baldur’s Gate became something of a legend, and it gave the company a deep understanding of what made Western RPGs work.
Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher stories, meanwhile, were already hugely popular in Poland. An earlier attempt to adapt them to video games by another Polish studio had been cancelled, so when CD Projekt set up its own development team, the Witcher was the obvious choice. The studio was young, inexperienced and ambitious to the point of recklessness. That combination defines the first game.
The first game opens at Kaer Morhen, the witchers’ fortress, with an amnesiac Geralt and an assault by a criminal organisation called Salamandra that turns everything upside down. The theft of the witchers’ mutagenic secrets sets the plot in motion, and Geralt sets off across Temeria to recover them.
It’s a rough game. Awkward camera options, constant loading screens and a combat system built around timing clicks to the rhythm of the animation, switching between fast, strong and group styles. Many players bounced off it in the first few hours, and even today it demands patience.
And yet everything is already there:
The Enhanced Edition of 2008 polished the voice acting, translations and loading times, and it’s the version to play today. If you want practical advice, our guide on how to enjoy The Witcher 1 today covers the rough edges.
Choices with no good side were there from day one.
With its own engine, REDengine, the sequel changes scale and ambition. Geralt is accused of regicide after a king is murdered in front of him, and the story becomes a chessboard of kings, sorceresses, conspiracies and elven rebels. The real culprit, Letho of Gulet, is another witcher — and one of the most interesting antagonists in the series, precisely because his motives make sense.
It’s the most political chapter and the riskiest. At the end of the first act, in the river town of Flotsam, Geralt must side with Vernon Roche, commander of Temeria’s special forces, or with Iorveth, leader of a Scoia’tael band. The second act is then completely different depending on that choice: different locations, different quests, different revelations. It’s an enormous amount of content that half of all players never see — a decision almost no studio would make today.
The combat, more active and built around dodging, rolling and Signs, is punishing for the first few hours, especially in the prologue. The game later received an Enhanced Edition in 2012 that improved the tutorial and added content, and it was also released on Xbox 360.
What The Witcher 2 does better than the other two games is density. Its structure of three closed acts, each in a contained region, allows a narrative focus that the open world of the third game doesn’t always reach. Every side quest feels connected to the political tension around it. We dig into this in our review of The Witcher 2.
Wild Hunt opens up the map: Velen, Novigrad, Skellige. The search for Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, gives him a personal motivation the earlier games lacked, and the return of Yennefer, absent from the first two games, completes the emotional picture.
Where Wild Hunt changed the industry was its side quests. They’re written with the same care as the main story, often with twists, moral dilemmas and endings that stay with you. The Bloody Baron’s storyline in Velen is still the example people cite when they talk about side quests done right: it begins as a simple search and becomes one of the most uncomfortable, human stories in the genre.
Other elements helped turn it into a phenomenon:
The two expansions round off the work. Hearts of Stone (2015) is a dark, contained fable about a cursed nobleman and a mysterious figure who grants wishes at a terrible price. Blood and Wine (2016) takes us to Toussaint, a duchy of saturated colours, vineyards and knights-errant that works as the perfect farewell for Geralt — he even gets a vineyard of his own to retire to.
In 2022, a next-gen update brought improved visuals, new options and some community-inspired content to the game, and in 2024 CD Projekt released REDkit, an official modding tool. If you’re planning a new playthrough, our essential mods guide and our beginner tips will help.
Played together, the three games reveal a remarkable consistency of tone, even as the technology and structure change completely:
Recurring characters reinforce this continuity. Dandelion, Zoltan, Triss, Roche and others appear across multiple games, and seeing them grow (or not) over three adventures adds a layer that’s lost if you only play the last one.
Whatever you choose, don’t rush. These are games that reward patience: reading the books in the menus, listening to conversations, taking contracts you don’t strictly need.
CD Projekt has already shown the next step, with a new game starring Ciri as the protagonist. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be built on the foundations laid by these three games.
Nineteen years after that first step into Kaer Morhen, the trilogy holds up as a whole. Rough edges and all, but with a coherence of voice and theme that very few series ever manage. It’s the story of a witcher who wanted to be left alone, told by a studio that refused to play it safe.
]]>This guide is for you: the lapsed player who still remembers their main’s name and wants to know where to begin without spending a week on wikis.
Today there are several games under the same subscription. They share a launcher and a payment, but they’re very different experiences.
Retail is the current World of Warcraft, with the latest expansion and all the accumulated content of the last twenty years. It’s faster, more polished and more convenient than the game you remember, with a huge amount to do at max level: dungeons, raids, Mythic+ keystones, PvP, world content, collections, cosmetics and more.
Choose Retail if you want to see what the game has become, play with friends who are currently active, or experience the newest story.
Classic is a family of versions that recreate earlier eras of the game. Blizzard has offered the original experience, progressions through later expansions and special rule sets such as Hardcore, where death is permanent. The exact lineup of Classic versions changes over time, so check the launcher to see what’s currently available.
Choose Classic if you’re coming back for nostalgia, prefer slower levelling and a more social, demanding world, or want the thrill of a character you can lose forever.
A single subscription gives you access to both, so there’s no harm in trying each.
Log in and your old characters should be waiting for you. They may look strange — interfaces, talents and abilities have been reworked many times — but they’re there, with their gear, achievements and collections.
Expect a few surprises:
If you’d rather start fresh, a new character is perfectly valid — levelling is much faster than it used to be.
Levels have been squished so that numbers stay manageable, and you can now choose which expansion to level in thanks to Chromie Time. Talk to Chromie in your faction’s capital and pick the era you prefer. The zones of that expansion will scale to your level, so you can follow its story from start to finish.
This is the best way to see stories you missed. Some popular choices:
Brand-new characters typically start in a dedicated introductory area that teaches the basics. If you already know how to play, you can skip ahead.
The built-in Edit Mode lets you move and resize action bars, unit frames, the minimap and most other elements. Many players who once relied on complex addon packs now use the default UI with a few tweaks.
Skyriding — the momentum-based flying introduced as dragonriding — completely changes how you move around the world. You dive to build speed, climb to gain altitude and use abilities to surge forward. It takes ten minutes to learn and makes old-style flying feel slow. Practise in a quiet zone before you need it.
The Warband system shares progress across your characters: certain reputations, a shared bank and more. Your alts no longer feel like starting from scratch, which makes trying other classes far more appealing.
Tools to find groups for dungeons, raids and other activities are built into the game. You can queue for many activities solo and be matched with others.
Many features that used to require addons are now built in. Even so, a few remain very common:
Install addons through a reputable manager and keep them updated after patches. Start light — you can always add more later.
Once you hit the level cap, the game opens up. The exact systems change with each expansion, but the broad structure is similar:
Don’t try to do everything. Pick what you enjoy and focus on that.
The WoW Token can be bought with real money and sold in-game for gold, or bought with gold and redeemed for game time or Battle.net balance. If you play a lot and earn gold, it’s a way to keep your subscription going; if you’re short on time, it’s a shortcut. Either way, you don’t need it to enjoy the game.
Join a guild. It’s still what makes World of Warcraft more than just a game: people to run dungeons with, ask questions, share achievements and simply hang out. Many players who return after years find that the community is what keeps them there.
Welcome back. Azeroth has changed a lot, but it was waiting for you. If you want a quick refresher on what you missed, our overview of every World of Warcraft expansion has you covered.
]]>That should have been the end. It wasn’t. Two decades later, Bloodlines is still played, patched, discussed and recommended, and it’s routinely cited as one of the best role-playing games ever made on PC. This is the story of how a commercial failure became a cult classic — and why its first neighbourhood, Santa Monica, is still the best part of it.
Troika Games was founded by veterans of the original Fallout: Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson. Their games — Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil and finally Bloodlines — all shared the same profile: enormous ambition, deep systems, sharp writing and technical problems that made reviewers despair.
Bloodlines was its most ambitious project. It took the World of Darkness, the gothic-punk tabletop universe of Vampire: The Masquerade, and turned it into a first- and third-person RPG set in modern Los Angeles. You’d talk, sneak, shoot, bite and scheme your way through vampire politics, with your choice of clan shaping how the world responded to you.
The team had only part of the time it needed. And launching against Half-Life 2 — the most anticipated shooter of its generation, running on the same engine — was the worst possible timing.
After a prologue in which you’re turned without permission and your sire is executed for the crime of creating you, the game drops you in Santa Monica. You’re a fledgling, tolerated only because the local prince sees you as useful. You have a dingy apartment, a few dollars and a phone number.
Santa Monica is small: a pier, a couple of streets, a beach house, a club, a run-down hostel, a clinic, a pawn shop. But every corner hides something:
Santa Monica works because it’s dense. There are few places, but they all have a story, and almost every job can be solved by talking, sneaking or biting. You get a sense of how the different factions — Camarilla, Anarchs, mortals, hunters — rub against each other, and you learn the rules of the Masquerade: don’t feed in public, don’t use powers in front of witnesses, don’t let humans know vampires exist.
Later hubs — Downtown, Hollywood, Chinatown — are bigger and more spectacular, but many players remember Santa Monica most fondly. It’s where Bloodlines shows exactly what it is.
Choosing a clan isn’t cosmetic. A Nosferatu can’t be seen on the street without breaking the Masquerade and must travel through the sewers. A Ventrue is picky about whose blood they drink. A Toreador seduces where others threaten. A Tremere wields blood magic. And then there’s the Malkavian, whose dialogue is almost entirely rewritten — so much so that they get an article of their own.
Dialogue skills — Persuasion, Intimidation, Seduction — open alternative paths in many quests, and some characters react differently depending on your clan. It’s the closest a video game had come to the feeling of a good tabletop session, and few have matched it since. If you’re unsure where to start, our clan guide has recommendations.
What has kept Bloodlines alive is, above all, its writing. Characters are vivid, funny, tragic and often deeply strange. The dialogue is sharp and full of personality, and the game is willing to be dark, absurd and melancholy in the same scene.
It also captures something essential about the source material: being a vampire is a curse. You’re powerful, but every night is a negotiation between your hunger, your humanity and the political games of older, stronger creatures who see you as a pawn.
None of this means Bloodlines is flawless. Even patched, it has clear weaknesses:
But the first two thirds are so good that most players forgive the rest.
The reason you can play it painlessly today has a name: the Unofficial Patch, maintained for years by the community with Werner Spahl (Wesp5) at the helm. It fixes thousands of bugs and offers a “basic” mode that only fixes things, and a “plus” mode that restores cut content and makes other changes.
Beyond the patch, a passionate community has produced mods, translations, analyses and endless discussion. Bloodlines became the kind of game that people keep recommending to each other, almost as a rite of passage for fans of the genre.
Bloodlines is not a perfect game. It’s something rarer: a game with a voice so distinctive that, twenty years later, it still has no substitute. Many games have tried to capture its blend of freedom, atmosphere and character, but few have come close.
Every few years a new generation of players discovers it, installs the patch and walks out into the Santa Monica night for the first time. As long as that keeps happening, Bloodlines will keep its place among the immortals.
]]>These are the tips we’d give any friend starting out. They’re spoiler-free — no story details, just systems, habits and advice that will make your first journey across the Continent smoother and more enjoyable.
Geralt has five Signs, simple spells cast with a button:
Of the five, Quen is the one that will save you most often early on. It absorbs a hit — sometimes more, depending on your upgrades — giving you room to make mistakes. Cast it before every fight and recast it whenever it breaks. Many experienced players keep it up almost constantly.
As you progress, experiment with the others: Igni is devastating against groups, Yrden is vital against certain monsters, and Axii can open new dialogue options.
Every monster has weaknesses: a specific oil, Sign, bomb or potion. The bestiary, found in your glossary, tells you what works against each creature once you’ve encountered or read about it.
Before a contract, open the bestiary entry, apply the right oil to your silver sword and prepare the right Sign or bomb. On higher difficulties, it’s the difference between a clean fight and a dozen reloads. On lower difficulties, it still makes fights quicker and more satisfying.
Reading books found in the world can also unlock bestiary entries, so pick them up.
Once you’ve crafted a potion, oil or bomb, you don’t need to craft it again. Meditating refills them, as long as you carry strong alcohol such as Dwarven Spirit or Alcohest. Each time you meditate, one bottle is used to refill your alchemy items.
Keep a few bottles in your inventory at all times. Buy them from merchants or craft them, and never sell them. It’s one of the most useful mechanics in the game, and many players don’t discover it until much later.
Meditation also lets you pass time, which is useful for quests that only happen at certain hours and for restoring health on lower difficulties.
Quests have a recommended level. If you complete a quest far below your current level, you’ll get very little experience for it. Many players save side quests “for later”, only to find that they’ve become worthless in terms of experience.
Do side quests and contracts as you find them. They’re often better written than the main story anyway, and they’ll keep your level in line with the main quests. The game’s best moments are frequently hidden in side content.
The story moves on, and certain quests close once you pass key moments. Characters leave, situations change and opportunities disappear.
As a rule of thumb: if a quest seems to involve a character or place you’re about to leave behind, finish it first. When the game warns you that you’re about to reach a point of no return, take it seriously — go back and tie up loose ends.
Holding the witcher senses button highlights clues, loot and interactive objects in red. In investigations, it’s mandatory: you’ll follow tracks, examine bodies and find hidden objects.
Outside investigations, it’s the easiest way to find what you’d otherwise miss: herbs, hidden chests, doors and paths. Get into the habit of tapping it whenever you enter a new area.
The best armour and weapons in the game are often witcher school gear, crafted from diagrams hidden around the world. Each school suits a different playstyle:
Each set has several tiers, which you upgrade by finding new diagrams as you level up. Hunting for them takes you to interesting locations and gives you a sense of progression. Look for scavenger hunt quests in your journal.
Prices vary by merchant and region. Some general tips:
Money can be tight early on, but it becomes much easier later. Avoid spending all your coin on items you’ll replace quickly.
Gwent is the in-world card game, and it’s a whole side activity of its own. Many players dismiss it at first and later fall in love with it.
Some of the best cards come from winning against specific characters or completing Gwent quests. Start collecting early, in Velen and Novigrad, and it will be much easier later. Buy cards from merchants and innkeepers whenever you can.
Gwent is optional, but it’s one of the most popular parts of the game — popular enough that it later got its own standalone release.
The game offers four difficulty levels:
On Death March!, the game becomes a demanding action RPG where every fight requires thought. On lower difficulties, you can focus on the story and exploration. Neither is the “right” way, and you can change difficulty at any time from the options.
The Witcher 3 rewards curiosity and preparation. The more you learn about its systems, the more it opens up — and the more you notice the care that went into its world and its stories.
Once you’ve settled in, check out our essential mods for a second playthrough, and if you want the bigger picture, read our trilogy retrospective.
]]>The two earlier Warcraft games had established a world of humans versus orcs. Warcraft III expanded it, deepened it and, above all, gave it characters. Almost everything that millions of players would later explore in World of Warcraft was born here.
Before the story, the design. Warcraft III introduced heroes: powerful units that gain experience, learn abilities and carry items. They were the heart of each army and, crucially, the heart of each story. When you controlled Arthas or Thrall in a mission, you weren’t just moving a unit; you were playing a character.
It also introduced four asymmetric races — Human Alliance, Orcish Horde, Undead Scourge and Night Elves — each with its own economy, buildings and style. And it added neutral creeps on the map, giving players a reason to explore and fight before meeting the enemy.
These ideas made the campaign feel closer to an RPG than to a traditional RTS — a direction Blizzard would push much further a couple of years later.
The game begins with a short orc prologue that doubles as a tutorial. Thrall, the young warchief of the orcs, is warned in a vision that he must lead his people across the sea to Kalimdor. It’s a modest start, but it plants the idea that drives the whole game: something terrible is coming, and old enemies will need each other.
The human campaign is, above all, the tragedy of Prince Arthas. He starts as a confident, impulsive paladin, beloved by his people and trained by the wise Uther. A mysterious plague is spreading through the northern villages of Lordaeron, turning people into undead, and Arthas sets out to stop it.
What follows is one of the great tragic arcs in gaming. Arthas becomes increasingly obsessed with defeating the plague’s source, and his decisions grow more terrible each time:
The player doesn’t just watch — they’re the one giving the orders in every mission. That complicity is what makes the campaign so effective.
With Arthas now a death knight in service of the Lich King, the game flips the perspective. We play as the Scourge, spreading the plague across the lands we were defending an hour earlier.
Arthas returns home and murders his father, King Terenas, in one of the most famous cinematics of the era. He then helps resurrect the necromancer Kel’Thuzad at the Sunwell, the source of the high elves’ power, devastating their kingdom of Quel’Thalas along the way.
It’s one of the first times a mainstream strategy game asked us to play as “the bad guys” without softening it. The campaign also introduces the demons of the Burning Legion, the true power behind the Scourge, setting up the conflict of the second half.
Thrall leads the orcs across the sea to Kalimdor. Here we meet Cairne Bloodhoof and the tauren, a noble people threatened by centaurs, and build the alliance that will become the core of the Horde.
The emotional centre of this campaign is Grom Hellscream, a fierce warrior whose people once drank demon blood to gain power, enslaving them to the Legion. When Grom falls prey to the same corruption again, Thrall must save him. Grom’s final battle against the demon Mannoroth is one of the most celebrated moments in the series — a story of redemption that would echo through Warcraft for years.
The final chapter introduces the night elves, an ancient people hidden in the forests of Kalimdor. Tyrande Whisperwind, high priestess of the moon goddess, must awaken her beloved Malfurion Stormrage and his druids. Malfurion’s brother, Illidan, imprisoned for millennia for an ancient betrayal, is freed — and quickly proves that he can’t be trusted.
Everything converges on the battle of Mount Hyjal, where the demon lord Archimonde attempts to destroy the World Tree. Humans led by Jaina, orcs led by Thrall and night elves led by Tyrande and Malfurion must fight side by side. The final missions, where you hold the line in waves while each faction’s base falls one after another, are some of the most memorable in RTS history.
It’s the ending that forces enemies to cooperate — an idea that would run through the whole story of World of Warcraft.
The expansion The Frozen Throne (2003) closed Arthas’s arc, introduced the blood elves and the Forsaken, and ended at the top of Icecrown. We covered it in our Frozen Throne retrospective.
And World of Warcraft (2004) was built directly on top of that political map:
Almost everything WoW players know was born in these campaigns. If you want to see where the story went next, our overview of twenty years of World of Warcraft expansions picks up the thread.
Twenty-plus years on, Reign of Chaos still feels remarkably modern. Its storytelling, its heroes and its asymmetric races influenced not only Blizzard’s later games but the entire RTS genre — and, through the World Editor, gave birth to new genres altogether, as we explain in From map editor to the birth of a genre.
If you’ve never played it, the original campaign is still the best way into the Warcraft universe. Our guide on how to play Warcraft III today explains which version to get. And if you already know it, go back: Arthas’s arc reads very differently when you know how it ends.
]]>Revisited today, a decade later, it handles that weight remarkably well. It’s not perfect, but it’s arguably the best-designed campaign Blizzard ever made, and one of the high points of the RTS genre.
The Protoss have spent years in exile since their homeworld, Aiur, was overrun by the Zerg. Now, under the leadership of Artanis, Hierarch of the Daelaam, they’ve gathered a great armada to reclaim it.
Things go wrong almost immediately. An ancient enemy, Amon, a fallen Xel’Naga who has been manipulating events across the entire trilogy, reveals his hand. The Protoss are betrayed from within, and Artanis is forced to flee aboard an ancient arkship.
The campaign becomes a quest to unite the scattered Protoss factions — the Daelaam, the Nerazim, the Purifiers and the Tal’darim — against a threat that endangers every living thing in the sector. It gives the Protoss a depth they never had before, exploring their culture, their history and their divisions.
Before the main campaign, a short prologue, Whispers of Oblivion, follows the Dark Templar Zeratul as he investigates a prophecy. It’s only a few missions long, but it sets up the story and introduces Amon’s threat. It’s well worth playing first.
Between missions you command the Spear of Adun, an ancient Protoss arkship. It replaces the hubs of the previous campaigns — the Hyperion in Wings of Liberty, the Leviathan in Heart of the Swarm — and it’s the most elegant of the three.
By collecting solarite in missions, you unlock abilities you can call down from orbit during battles. Some examples of what they allow:
These abilities let you shape your playstyle. Want a stronger economy? A defensive army? Massive orbital firepower? You choose.
What makes the system special is the choice between unit variants. Each Protoss unit can be taken from different factions:
Each variant changes how the unit works. A Zealot might charge, whirl or gain a different special ability depending on its faction. You can change these choices freely between missions, so every mission becomes a little experiment.
This flexibility is the campaign’s greatest strength. It encourages you to try new strategies and rewards creativity.
Missions keep introducing new ideas. Some highlights (without spoilers):
Few missions feel like a standard “build a base and destroy the enemy”. Each has a twist, and the pacing is excellent. The difficulty climbs steadily toward a finale that brings every thread of the trilogy together.
After the main campaign, the Into the Void epilogue brings together characters from all three races for a final confrontation. It’s a short, intense trilogy of missions, each playing as a different race, that closes the story.
It’s satisfying, spectacular and occasionally a little too neat — but after so many years, seeing the characters united is genuinely moving.
Legacy of the Void also changed the competitive game significantly:
It also introduced new modes:
The writing occasionally leans on lofty speeches, and some characters speak almost exclusively in grand declarations. Players who preferred the intimate, character-driven tone of Wings of Liberty may find it grandiose.
But the story succeeds in giving the Protoss emotional depth. Artanis is a sympathetic leader, the conflicts between factions feel meaningful, and the theme of unity — of overcoming ancient divisions — resonates.
These are minor complaints in a campaign of this quality.
| Wings of Liberty | Heart of the Swarm | Legacy of the Void | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Race | Terran | Zerg | Protoss |
| Hub | Hyperion | Leviathan | Spear of Adun |
| Customisation | Upgrades, mercenaries | Evolutions, Kerrigan | Unit variants, orbital abilities |
| Tone | Intimate, western | Personal, revenge | Epic, unity |
| Flexibility | High | Medium | Very high |
If you’ve played the first two chapters, this is a must. And even on its own — it’s a standalone game — it’s arguably the best introduction to what a modern RTS campaign can be.
Legacy of the Void combines strong mission design, flexible customisation and a grand finale for a story that spanned nearly two decades. It’s not flawless, but it’s the high point of StarCraft II’s campaigns and one of the best RTS campaigns ever made.
For the full picture, see our StarCraft II campaign guide.
]]>But if there’s one region outside Asia that has consistently stood up to that dominance, it’s northern Europe. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark have produced a disproportionate number of strong StarCraft players for countries of their size. This is a look at why — and at the moment the whole scene changed.
Part of the explanation lies in the big LAN parties. Long before esports had arenas and sponsorships, thousands of players would carry their computers to a hall and spend a weekend playing together.
These events were places where local players measured themselves against strong opponents, where friendships and rivalries formed, and where organisers learned how to run competitions. When StarCraft II arrived in 2010, the infrastructure and culture were already in place.
It’s a cliché, but there’s some truth in it. The Nordic countries were early adopters of high-speed internet, and gaming has long been a mainstream hobby there. Add long, dark winters and you have a population with good connections, good hardware and plenty of reasons to stay indoors.
Combined with strong local communities, that created fertile ground for a demanding, competitive game like StarCraft.
The first generation of StarCraft II produced some very recognisable Nordic players:
They competed at the highest level in an era when nearly every major title stayed in Korea, and they inspired a generation of younger players across the region.
The big breakthrough came in 2018. Finland’s Joona “Serral” Sotala, a Zerg player, had a year of extraordinary results, winning tournament after tournament. At the end of it came the WCS Global Finals at BlizzCon, the world championship of StarCraft II.
Serral won. He became the first non-Korean player to win the WCS Global Finals, breaking a dominance that many believed couldn’t be broken. For the scene outside Asia, it was a seismic moment: proof that it was possible, and a new standard to aim for.
Since then, Serral has remained one of the strongest players in the world, and his success has drawn fresh attention to Finnish and Nordic StarCraft.
The original StarCraft never fully went away. After StarCraft: Remastered arrived in 2017 and Blizzard made the classic version with Brood War free to play, a new wave of players discovered it.
The Nordic community still organises matches and small online tournaments, and many veterans enjoy the original’s pace and mechanics, which are very different from StarCraft II.
Looking at the Nordic example, a few ingredients stand out:
These lessons apply to any esports community, not just StarCraft.
If this has made you want to play, start with the basics. Our guide StarCraft for people who have never played an RTS explains the fundamentals, and our StarCraft II campaign guide is the best way to learn the units before trying multiplayer.
Then find a local community. You don’t need to be good to join a tournament — many are designed for exactly that.
In upcoming pieces we’ll look at the stories of some of these players in more detail. The north has always had something to say in StarCraft, and it isn’t finished yet.
]]>This guide explains each clan, its strengths, its weaknesses and who it’s for, followed by advice on building your character and our recommendations for a first run.
Before choosing a clan, it helps to understand the basics:
You can create your character through a questionnaire, which assigns a clan based on your answers, or choose directly. We recommend choosing directly so you know what you’re getting.
Experience is earned mainly by completing quests, not by killing enemies. That means talking and sneaking characters level up just as fast as fighters.
Rebels and idealists with a short temper. Once philosophers, now often anarchists and street fighters.
Easy to play and forgiving in combat. A solid first pick if you want action.
Loners close to their animal side, at home in the wilderness and the night.
Good if you like a resilient character who can take a beating.
The clan of madness and prophecy.
Brilliant, but best saved for a second run — we explain why in our Malkavian article.
Monstrous in appearance, masters of secrets and information.
A unique experience, but not one for the first night.
Artists, aesthetes and seducers, drawn to beauty in all its forms.
A great balanced choice for a first run, especially if you enjoy dialogue.
Members of a secretive, hierarchical clan of sorcerers.
Many veterans consider them the strongest clan overall. An excellent first pick.
Leaders, executives and manipulators, the blue bloods of vampire society.
A good choice if you enjoy dialogue and don’t mind managing your feeding.
Regardless of clan, a few principles apply:
Persuasion, Intimidation and Seduction open up alternative solutions throughout the game, often letting you avoid fights or gain better rewards. Many of the best moments in Bloodlines come from conversation.
Don’t spread your points too thin. Choose melee, firearms or disciplines as your main way of fighting, and invest consistently.
Sneaking is useful for every clan, and essential for some.
Hacking and lockpicking unlock optional content, shortcuts and loot. They’re not essential, but they add a lot.
Your Humanity reflects how much of your human side remains. Killing innocents lowers it, making you more prone to frenzy. Breaking the Masquerade — using powers or feeding in front of witnesses — has consequences. Play carefully.
| Clan | Combat | Social | Stealth | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brujah | High | Medium | Low | Easy |
| Gangrel | High | Low | Medium | Easy |
| Malkavian | Medium | Unique | High | Medium |
| Nosferatu | Medium | Low | High | Hard |
| Toreador | Medium | High | Medium | Easy |
| Tremere | High | Medium | Medium | Easy |
| Ventrue | Medium | High | Low | Medium |
Whichever you pick, install the unofficial patch before you start — we explain why in Bloodlines: why Santa Monica never dies. Then step out into the night and see where your blood takes you.
]]>Since then there have been three numbered entries, made under very different circumstances and with very different results. If you’re curious about the series, the question is simple: which one first? Here’s everything you need to decide.
Before the differences, the shared foundation:
The first game is a linear descent into the depths beneath the mining town of Torchlight. A corrupting mineral called Ember has been unearthing horrors in the mines, and you go down, floor by floor, through mines, ruins, crypts and stranger places, returning to town between trips.
It’s short, direct and free of distractions. There are no open zones, no map full of icons, no complicated systems. Just one more floor, one more piece of loot. It’s perfect for a few evenings, and it runs on practically any computer.
We review it in more detail in Torchlight (2009), revisited.
The sequel expands everything. Instead of a single mine, you travel across open zones — plains, deserts, forests — with towns, side quests and optional dungeons. The story follows the corruption of one of the heroes from the first game, and the pacing is excellent from start to finish.
It has since been released on consoles too, so you can play it on a TV with a controller.
The third game had a complicated birth. It began life as Torchlight Frontiers, a free-to-play online game, under a new studio, Echtra Games. During development it was reworked into a paid, numbered sequel. That history shows in its design.
We go into more depth in Torchlight III, revisited.
| Torchlight | Torchlight II | Torchlight III | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2009 | 2012 | 2020 |
| Studio | Runic Games | Runic Games | Echtra Games |
| Structure | Linear dungeon | Open zones | Zones and hub |
| Multiplayer | No | Yes | Yes |
| Mods | Yes | Yes, strong scene | Limited |
| Best for | A short, focused run | Most players | Fans of the series |
Start with Torchlight II. It’s the most complete, the one that has aged best and the one that will give you the most hours, solo or with friends. Its mix of open zones, strong classes, co-op and mod support make it one of the best action RPGs of its generation.
If it hooks you, the first game is a nice dessert for discovering the origins. It’s short, cheap and charming, and seeing where the series came from is part of the fun.
The third game, only if you’re already a fan of the series and want more. It has good ideas, and it’s fine in co-op, but it isn’t the evolution the series deserved.
Whatever you choose, Torchlight is a series that respects your time. Pick one, grab your pet and head down.
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