So I beat the game earlier today and is this meant to be it?

The ending when they are explaining what happened to everyone it pans across a planet and says "Scientists have reported a strange regrowth of life on formerly barren planets across the Koprulu sector. The origin of these vast changes is unknown"

This could just be an ending but I don't understand why it would be.

That part was just to imply that Kerrigod was starting a new life cycle or something similar. There's a decent chance they do something with the Starcraft brand in the future it'll probably just be in 10 years with totally new characters and hopefully it plays at least somewhat different than Brood War fundamentally; though I can understand the desire to not shift from the best.

Warcraft 4 in 5 years?

I may have missed some things but I never really felt that cycle start while there is a current one. I can't remember exactly but I want to say there was some talk about everyone being free and the cycle not starting over and over.

@deathfromace: I mean that's supposedly the endgame but the inevitability of decay overrules the stupidity of fiction I think. Protoss glassed at least like a thousand planets, then the zerg eradicated another couple thousand; so all in all there's probably not much life in the Koprulu Sector left; hence the need for new life. Also she has to find a method of redemption for all the murder and whatnot.

I guess this could just be used to write everything out for Blizzard if they were to do another RTS with all new races.

I could have sworn there was a part about Kerrigan not keeping the cycle going but maybe I was mistaken.

Edit: I found another person that also remember it saying she broke the cycle. Huzzah !

Yeah she says it to Amon, about not caring about the cycle but being free. Besides, the entire point of the cycle is to breed new xel'nagas, and that universe already produced one with Kerrigan even tho she wasn't purity of form/purity of essence

Well the point I was getting at is if there is no new cycle I don't understand the ending scene with the barren planet having new life on it. Nothing in the game hints as to why that would happen. You could guess that Kerrigan is doing it as many have but nothing suggests it other than she would have the power. What we do know is she is off with James and they are doing their thing and I just don't think that thing is her regrowing planets. I mean I can see why she would as she said herself that she destroyed tons of worlds and a lot of things are her fault but I think if it was just that simple it would have been said instead of the mystique they put around that part of the ending.

Raynor could just as well have been hallucinating that very last part, but I suppose that's a cynical viewpoint.

The sudden regrowth could be an after-effect of the expended energy from the last battle, or due to Amon's vanished influence. Benevolent radiation vs. evaporated pesticide.

@deathfromace: I think the concept of the cycles implies basically starting fresh in new dimensions (the Artanis/Kerrigan missions in Xel'naga-dome give this expostion), so Kerrigan is breaking the cycle by sticking with this one and letting/making new life flourish. I could also imagine her leaning toward evolutionary creation of life, rather than the intelligent design of the Xel'naga.

Heck, if we assume the Xel'naga didn't make *all* life, but rather focused on their two purity of blah races, then humans are probably purely products of evolution and a human becoming a Xel'naga wouldn't have the same goals as a race created by them. Moreover this would be a super pro-human subtext, since the terrans brought themselves up by their genetic bootstraps to contend with intelligently designed races and which everyone loves because we hoomans and we love us.

I think Raynor's "going into the light" is basically god-Kerrigan looking down on him without purpose after saving the galaxy and basically saying "come join me in deific eternity" and he's like, "okay!" It's essentially him accepting death, but getting access to awesome fire angel girlfriend heaven as well. Which on one hand is a great reward for a favorite worn-out character and on the other feels too pristine an end in the SC universe. Basically, I think it captures how many of the devs' (esp Metzen) and players' inhabit the Raynor character (since he's the reg'lar ol' hooman dude) and wish that death/perfect eternity on themselves, once they've done their equivalent of saving the universe.

Finally, I would have liked a little more Protoss and Zerg stuff than the stills/text at the end. But boy howdy am I glad Artanis did not fall in love out of nowhere.

No they clearly states that the xel'naga start all life in a new universe and don't interfere. The whole point of the cycle is that the natural course of life will always end with a purity of form species and a purity of essence one. The sudden "twist" is that Amon, and not the other xel'naga as believed before, actually went and uplifted the protoss, then when they turned against him and his followers (which is what started the aeon of strife) he went to the zerg planet and did the same again. The problem is that blizzard told us even throughout this and past games that those two were the races destined to awaken the xel'naga, yet since they set up Kerrigan as an essential figure they kinda went and messed up. If they made Kerrigan fuse with a protoss to become a xel'naga it would have been right by their lore, but as the ending stands right now it makes no sense because the protoss don't factor at all in the cycle (contrary to even all their temples inscriptions and prophecies) yet maybe the humans are the actual "purity of form" ones since Kerrigan is part human but they are never mentioned at all in what they told us. By their logic even Stukov could have become a Xel'naga, being part human and part zerg

just finished- here's my hot take:

maaan is that a blizzard story. 5 years to write something that cliche. it's not the worst thing in the world- but maaan 5 years just to riff on ryan davis' patented "sci-fi all-story." i've come to expect this from blizzard, so it doesn't detract from the game at all. but maaan!

i do feel a slight tinge of melancholy since this is ostensibly the end of a plot that started when i was 13 (i'm now 30). but WOOF- surely they could have thought of something more suitable in all that time!

Yeah, just beat the game about an hour ago, and here are some of my take a ways,

1. I know there story dlc coming (most likely paid, but they didn't say one way or another) since they announced a nova campaign at blizzcon for next year (3, 3 mission parts). So am guessing a lot of the holes in the ending will get filled there (most likely they'll all take place between the 2 year gap, since Raynor leaves in the ending at that point)
2. Am not sure what to make out of Raynor's ending, he might be dead (he did walk off into a doorway of light with the memory of a woman who no longer exists), or maybe he is off somewhere with Kerrigod. Guessing the dlc won't clear this up, since it seems to be intended to be vague. In any case, i feel kind of bad for the character, since he seems to lose everybody, hell, i had the song 'Hurt' playing in my head during his ending cut scene (The Johnny Cash's cover of the NIN song).
3. I wonder if they'll release any novels that deal with the aftermath of the game. Guessing they will, but i haven't heard anything yet.
4. Overall i thought the ending was decent. I would have prefer more information, but they did proved enough so that i didn't feel cheated.

Just beat it. How is no one talking about how Kerrigan literally turns into Phoenix at the end? She has the red hair and everything. Now that there's kinda peace I can totally see the SC universe turning into a Mass Effect/Star Trek sorta thing, tense political situations and whatnot. A Tal'Darim raiding ship is found destroyed in Khalai space (are they still even the Khalai? I mean, they nuked the Khala) and now both sides are threatening war! Gonna need a Spectre to come investigate and uncover the truth!

It totally does. Kerrigan is a Xel'Naga now except still a sexy lady and not a giant squid guy and Xel'Naga have the power to create life. There isn't a new cycle because whatever happens with this new life, there aren't going to be any more Xel'Naga unless Kerrigan herself decides to turn them into Xel'Naga because she's the only one who can, at least if we're going to believe what Michael Dorn had to say.

I just figured because Kerrigan has like super enhanced psionics she can fill the purity of form role similar to a Protoss.

I'm not sure why people keep thinking he died. After that scene it says "Jim Raynor was never heard from again. His badge was recovered from Joey Ray's bar on Mar Sara."

I mean anything could happen after this but I don't think that was meant to indicate that he died because well....he was actually there as someone found his badge. Also she is still around, if Ouros can disguise himself as Tassadar I think it's easier to believe a more powerful (maybe) Kerrigan can make herself look like her normal self.

Just because it's something that she could do does not mean is it her doing it and as I said nothing in the game indicated that she would be the one doing it. If she were the one doing it I feel like it would have been said in the ending instead of having some mystery left in it.

Other than the fact that A) she's the only known being left in the universe with that power and B) the whole reason she took on the Xel'Naga power was so she could make amends for all of the lives she took and destruction she caused. Yeah, they don't explicitly spell it out, but that's the whole point. Kerrigan's presence is something that is felt around the universe but only truly understood by a small handful of people, including "you" the player.

Obviously they could retcon all of this but it's clear to me that this is the conclusion they want us to come to. Because like you said, (otherwise) why would that be the ending?

Honestly it does feel that trying to tie things up and understand the specifics of various threads in the narrative is an exercise in futility. The team themselves clearly had no idea how to resolve things in a coherent way, and had to finish somehow just because they previously set up some pieces in the story. Just look at the macguffin which in this game is an "uber" version of it (the keystone now does this, now does that, wait we need to solve things there? well the keystone can do this too! Solved!); Kerrigan going "yo dude i've been on this legendary secret planet for days, what a coincidence finding you here! You want to ask me how i've found out about this place and why there were no zerg spacecreatures outside when you arrived even if i were already here? Look! A three-headed monkey!"; Duran being a xel'naga and the whole void dimension; etc. And that is just from the top of my head. I feel like it's just best to rest my mind and stop taking them seriously

yeah- honestly the conclusion (or rather the entirety of this most recent expansion) really feels like a team of writers felt shackled to an existing plot they had no interest in dealing with (or rather they wanted to just be done with it). the old games presented interesting character-driven problems- and while it wasn't award-winning writing, it did feel somewhat plausible (within universe).

it feels like the team took that preexisting BW and WoL framework, and then wrote the MOST middle-of-the-road, generalized story they possibly could. they favored BIG, UNIVERSE-HANGS-IN-THE-BALANCE cutscenes instead of character-development, which is how we ended up with the conclusion we have.

again, not the absolute worst thing in the world. but IMHO very lackluster.

Even as someone who had no real problems with stories in the previous 2 entries, the ending of the trilogy felt kinda forced, especially all that epilogue bit.

The moment to moment action and cutscenes were awesome! (up to that point), but like other have said it felt like a plot that painted itself into a corner and then also decided to jump throught some esoteric hoops right before the end for the heck of it. I am reluctantly having to accept that maybe other people were right, Blizzard is just writing the same overarching story over and over in their games, and really the defeat ultimate evil endings have now felt limp for some time now (looking at your Diablo 3, (twice)). Which is too bad because like I mentioned in the moment Blizzard does some amazing shit, even if it is cliche frequently, it is well executed cliche, so if they can somehow expunge their need to unify everyone to defeat the Evil(tm) and focus on less grand shit I think it would go a long way.

So I just completed LotV moments ago.... and I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole thing.

Mechanically, the game is solid and very polished as per usual when it comes to Blizzard. The story though, I feel is kinda flat honestly, despite all the grandiose judgement day stuff. I'll admit that ever since the ending of WoL, I was rooting for the Raynor/Kerrigan romance, but I feel the way it ended was really hokey. I'm not sure if I would've preferred both of 'em dying instead, because the "dead/not dead" vagueness of Kerrigan is kinda bullshit. I guess it's to let the individual player run with whatever they think is the "right" version, but it still strikes me as a major letdown.

As others have pointed out, Blizzard's penchant for doing the whole "unite to defeat the greater evil" is getting really old by now and it honestly feels like they were aching to shut the book on this entire story.

Ok, just got time to sit down and write my own thoughts and..I though it was silly and contrived and predictable....and I adored it for it.

Like someone else mentioned this is the end to a story I've been waiting on since I was a young teenager. Yes, Older adult me knows cheesy bad writing when he sees it..but 13 y/o me doesn't. He got exactly what he wanted. Heroic sacrifice, Bitter sweet romance, sacrificed for the good of all..only to be a "nahh not really, happy ending!" Explosions, a big evil badguy that all these cool iconic characters come together to smash in the face? Alexi getting his revenge on Duran? Yup, Yup, YUP!

Like yeah, I get it. Not a bit of criticism people are leveling at this is wrong..but like, I don't care? I wanted the cheesy over the top ending, I wanted the ending I would have gotten in 2002 if they had released this in the same kinda time-scale as most games..and we did. That it's 2015, and the expectations of narrative have changed, and such stories have long since ceased to be unique or interesting doesn't bother me.

This isn't some new sci-fi property, to be judged by today's standards. Its absolute shear fan-service, for the many many people like me who have waited years and years to see it end. In that respect, for me at least, it succeeds in spades.

As to the meanings of everything. Don't other think it, your not meant too. The three factions rebuild and reclaim their destiny, free of Amon's influence. Jim gets the girl. And Kerrigan uses her power to now bring life, instead of death, to the galaxy she helped scar.

Its really no more complex then that. Yah, they might make it more so in future stuff and there is room to like, make more games, tell more story, but the one they started with the original games has its conclusion, cheesy and generic, but it is a conclusion.

As to the ending scene with Raynor. Fairy tales need happy endings, and he got his. Really, that's the long and short of it.

@bladededge: 100% agree with everything you said!

Anyways, for me this expansion was downright awesome enough for me after the 7th mission (10th with prologue) when I saw the "Alone" cinematic and Artanis blows up Shakuras, that shit was bad ass!

Despite the story being pretty predictable, I really enjoyed the campaign and ship progression. Also really liked the ship upgrades/abilities and alternate mission types.

Also it's kinda ironic that while Amon's plan, which resulted in uplifting the Protoss and creating the Zerg backfired on him, Kerrigan ended up breaking the cycle anyway...though not in the way Amon wanted but still, the general end result was somewhat similar.

I am incredibly tired of all stories and other bullshit like that. The moment to moment stuff in this game was absolutely fantastic, but that cleaning up at the end was incredibly forced. It's a shame because all the story stuff before hand was pretty good. Everything about unifying the protoss was well done.

I'm with @bladededge 100%. The campaign and ending were big, fun, bombastic, and rather silly once you sit down and think about it. It was cool to see what Xel'Naga look like. It feels to me like they're willing to tie up Starcraft with a neater bow than they would normally do, since the era of making games of this style may be drawing to a close. They talked about it a bit on the Bombcast a couple weeks ago, but in the span of time since Wings of Liberty came out, the industry has shifted quite a bit and I'd be pretty surprised to see a traditional Blizzard game come out any time soon with a big single-player campaign.

Is Zaragra taking over the universe a good ending? I am not sure if the Zerg being prosperous is a good thing for life everywhere. I know the humans and Protass being friends is a good thing but the Zerg is still taking over planets.

Everyone seems to forget that the Zerg is still taking over and Zagara is a bit less "kind" then the Queen of Blades.

Also what happened to the other characters like Russian Zerg and some of the minor allies throughout the game? I don't think they mention that.

@kogx: Was pretty sure that was a. " The zerg take these planets after the war, getting their own little place in the universe and leave everyone alone. Zagara's getting some lessons to be a bit less crazy. Also Zerg are nowhere near tyranids in bad guy level or drive. so I feel this is kind of them just existing without causing trouble.


And unlike a lot of people in here. I agree the game was still pretty good but the way they tied it up was kind of.. bad.
Would of been a stronger campaign without the last thing they tack on to it to quickly end everything in the most hockey way.
And Kerrigan is still a terrible character!

@cheappoison: Well if I recall Heart of the Swarm all the Zerg thought what Kerrigan did was interesting but nothing that would suggest that they are not brutal. No one from the Zerg in my opinion has the "let's just stay here" mentality. I cannot think of a single person in the Zerg that will just accept that, except for the Russian guy but he will not be leading the Zerg. Zagara became a more intelligent leader, not an empathetic one from what I remember. I doubt they will ever be in peace.

Also remember that Queen in that expansion that destroyed the Protoss ship? She is still plotting to kill all the Protoss because that is her final order. Anyone remember what happened to her?

@kogx: To be fair, the wording used was that they were reclaiming places that they lost...not sure if that means the entire Koprulu sector (again) but I think it may just be planets close to Char that got taken over by the Dominion.

Then again...there's that Primal Zerg whose sole reason of joining was to get more Essence though he doesn't seem like the type that would engage in a full scale war.

That Queen probably got purified anyway or was recalled by Kerrigan and joined in the war she was waging vs the Hybrids. The latter seems more likely since at the end of Heart of the Swarm all the brood's that were commanded by Queens were reaching out to her.