StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign
Russian Translation:
A russian team has taken the liberty of translating the campaign to Russian! Download it here!
On their website you can find more Russian translations of custom campaigns. For a full list of available campaigns in russian, click here!
Introduction:
This is my first serious map project for StarCraft II. I've always enjoyed the campaign aspect of StarCraft and have played through both the Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm campaigns several times, along with a multitude of different campaigns made by the public. I therefore decided it was time to create my own.
"Annihilation" is a 24 mission campaign with three different story perspectives that will intertwine into one final conclusion. Featuring high-quality terrain, lots of different characters as well as a wide variety of mission scenarios, this campaign, featuring 4 difficulty levels, will hopefully create an enjoyable experience for players of every skill level.
Link to the official Map Feedback thread can be found here.
Features:
- Three seperate storylines intersecting and coming together into one final conclusion.
- Play as both Terran, Zerg and Protoss.
- Heavy focus on quality terrain and environments.
- Custom soundtracks and several interesting Hero units.
- 24 missions pitting you up against many different challenges and mission scenarios.
- A total of 14 boss battles pitting you up against a variety of different tacticts and strategies.
Story:
It all starts with Investigator Maxwell Reeves of the Spec-Ops: Infiltration Program, who sets surface on the planet Callithus IV to assist the Terran settlers with what initially appears to be a minor Zerg problem. However, they soon realize that events has been set in motion that will potentially change the fate of the universe, and it will be up to the different clans to work together against stopping this threat.
Installation Guideline:
Note: When playing the maps, avoid using the Resume from Replay function, as this may break aspects of the maps. Instead, use the Save/Load function.
- Download the Annihilation zip file, extract them and put all the files inside the Maps folder in your StarCraft II directory. The file path should be something like "StarCraft II/Maps/Annihilation". If the Maps folder does not exist, create it yourself.
- Open the "AnnihilationLauncher.SC2Map" file through the editor. To open the editor, either drag and drop the map file to the SC2 Editor icon, or open the editor, and use the File -> Open function on your taskbar.
- Once the Campaign Launcher is successfully opened, launch the game through the editor by heading into File -> Test Document on your taskbar.
NOTE: Do NOT change any of the file names. Doing this, as well as not having the files in the correct filepaths listed in the Installation Guideline above, will prevent the campaign maps from connecting and in turn, make the Campaign Launcher completely useless.
Ignore the "DS_Store" files that you may recieve upon downloading. These folders are added automatically when you store a file in folders on Mac computers. You can safely delete these.
Missions:
- Annihilation 01: Mindless Creatures - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 02: An Unfriendly Ally - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 03: The Idu'ran - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 04: Fallen Brethren - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 05: Departure - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 06: The Daggerfang - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 07: Homecoming - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 08: The Wandering Shadow - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 09: Bio-Weapons - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 10: Newfound Enemies - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 11: Ussorus - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 12: Reawakening - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 13: Facility 14A - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 14: The First Step - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 15: Entrance Into Risk - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 16: The Breach - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 17: Last Stand - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 18: A Major Downfall - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 19: Planetary Incursion - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 20: Sentient Reality - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 21: Mysterious Revelations - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 22: The United Forces - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 23: Frontal Push - Completed (RELEASE)
- Annihilation 24: Edge of Annihilation - Completed (RELEASE)
Difficulty Levels:
This campaign contains 4 difficulty levels, ranging from Casual, Normal, Hard and Brutal. Your success in completing the individual missions on these difficulties greatly depends on your level of skill.
- Casual: A difficulty requiring little to no multitasking and micro skills, featuring less enemies and focus on story.
- Normal: A difficulty requiring minor multitasking and micro skills, featuring fewer enemies and focus on story and minor challenges.
- Hard: A difficulty requiring good multitasking and micro skills, featuring a high number enemies and focus on challenges and entertainment.
- Brutal: A difficulty requiring great multitasking and micro skills, featuring tremendously more enemies and heavy focus on challenge.
Troubleshooting:
You may have trouble opening these maps if you open them directly from the map itself. If you do have this issue and the map opens up as just an empty map, then I suggest you open it in the following way:
- Open up the StarCraft II Editor.
- Once finished, go to "Open".
- Find the map in your catalog, and select it. Using this method to open any maps from the campaign should fix any issues you have with opening them.
Music
You may notice some of the music in the campaign are not from StarCraft, in fact, I focused heavily on the use of soundtracks to bring the campaign to life. If you wish to see a full list of all the tracks confirmed to be used, click here.
Credits:
- Special thanks to the respected composers of the various different music soundtracks used in this campaign.
- Special thanks to Thrikodias for the awesome custom models and units used in this campaign.
- Special thanks to VastanX for creating the unique models for various Hero units used in this campaign.
- Special thanks to all those who play and provide useful feedback to help improve these maps.
- Special thanks to users JayborinoPlays, deltronLive, Redlerred7 xMasterKD and Palnai for playing and providing entertainment and feedback for this campaign.
Discord:
Enjoy Annihilation? Follow my official Discord, and engage in discussions about the campaign, or chat with me directly. Following this discord also gives you access to frequent updates and WIP showcases of my latest campaign project, A War Story.
Patch Notes:
No patch notes are planned for the campaign.
Videos:
Comments
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thedodo1995 Owner
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Posted Jan 7, 2015@chevelle12: Go
You sure you opened one of the actual maps? Perhaps you've set your editor settings to load up a new map when you download a file. Try quitting the editor, find the mission you downloaded, and then open it again.
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Posted Jan 7, 2015I mean nothing appears, or units, no buildings, nothing just a green field.
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Posted Jan 7, 2015@chevelle12: Go
I'm not sure I understand where you faced the issue, so let me get this straight: Did you open one of the missions and when it finished loading, you ended up with a completely green map? If that's the case, maybe restart the editor or your computer entirely? Not quite sure why you're facing this problem, unfortunately.
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Posted Jan 7, 2015I am using a translator because I'm from Venezuela and not English. I just want to ask why I can not play. as truthful when I open the map with the publisher did not leave anything alone all in plain green and when I get home tie. I need a solution. help
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Posted Jan 6, 2015Hi, I am testing map 8 and during the stalking of the war pig, I can' go any further because it's impossible to break the Rock near the little base. Is it a known bug? Or maybe am I trying the wrong way ?
EDIT Hahaha forget it, I found what was happening. Very nice :D
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Posted Dec 12, 2014@n97mikur: Go
There is no mod required for this campaign. Simply go into Files and download each of the documents. (Each document features 2 missions) They will be in a zip-file, so when you download it, you'll have to unzip it and there will be a folder with the 2 missions inside. That's pretty much it :)
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Posted Dec 12, 2014I'm not a hardcore mod installer i need a guide.
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Posted Dec 9, 2014@gurotcho: Go
I actually feel quite sorry that you failed so far in the mission, without having the ability to load from a few minutes earlier. So, in that sense I can definitely understand the skippable section thing.
The boss battles quite frankly, is incredibly difficult to balance. I've thought about the difficulty of the banelings for lower-skill players. What I've tried to do so far is attempt to make things easier by giving the boss less HP and reducing the damage all the way down so that for example on Casual, you can often times stand directly on top of where the boss is shooting without taking too much damage. One thing I did with the baneling part, was activate it when the boss is about 150 health or something like that. This means you only need to direct about 3-4 banelings to the boss before you win, so I do try to make things easier for lower level players but it difficult. Especially since my whole basis of Casual and a bit of Normal shouldn't encourage tons of excellent micro, which doesn't really work out well for a boss battle. :)
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Posted Dec 8, 2014@DudkiSC2: Go
I'll prob play all of the missions at one point, but what just happened to me on Mission 6 was that I got the part after the boss fight (on Brutal, which was kind of boring because it was the same 2 types of pattern for 10 minutes with an incredibly slow rate of fire. The baneling part was really innovative, but I fear it might be hard for some people because the boss hitbox is way too big and you need very good micro to use the banelings for damage.) and after I died, I realized I didn't save so I had to restart the ENTIRE mission over again, at which point I just stopped.
Besides that, even the micro sections are really neat. Also the objectives are REALLY varied and fun. I think most custom campaigns don't abuse the fact that they can do anything with upgrades so I think having those extra upgrades exclusive to Single Player (or even custom upgrades) is incredibly neat. You don't have the time and resources to upgrade and build everything anyway, so it gives players a lot of fredom on how to deal with missions.
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Posted Dec 8, 2014@gurotcho: Go
Thanks for notifying me of the bugs. It's smaller details like those that I tend not to notice myself. It's funny though, the one with the weird camera angle never occured to me. I'll have to look into that.
If you don't like micro sections, I'm sorry to say that a lot of gameplay of this campaign probably won't be your cup of tea. Every map I've released so far either starts with a micro, or at least has a micro portion at some point. (excluding Mission 5 so far) I make the missions to fit the story, and as a result I have a lot of these types of gameplay. In regards to the "Skippable Micro Sections", I must admit I'm not a big fan of that. I can see where you're going but I personally don't like the idea of allowing people to just simply skip parts of a mission just because they don't "like it". I want some more people suggesting this at least before I choose to consider this.
When I made the Brutal difficulty, my end goal was to have it feel a little more challenging than WOL brutal. So far, I'm pretty happy with the difficulty of the missions, and I try to add some noticeable changes when you change difficulties.
Appreciate your feedback :)
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Posted Dec 7, 2014You need to fix a couple of maps. When I skipped some cinematics on brutal, the mouse cursor would sometimes not show up or the camera angle would be fixed in a weird axis after the gate was destroyed on Mission 2.
I'd also appreciate it if you included an option to skip the 'limited units micro' sections. It normally wouldn't be an issue but most maps start with one, so I haven't bothered to check out the protoss missions yet. I'm not sure if many people want to go through those sections in every mission.
These missions on Brutal are a lot harder than Wings of Liberty Brutal. If you're happy with where Brutal difficult stands in that regards, it's great. I do love it when the differences in difficulty settings are actually quite significant.
Other than that, everything else is great. Missions are fleshed out with objectives and scripted attacks, upgrades are great, etc
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Posted Oct 16, 201425% complete!!
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Posted Sep 26, 2014This campaign is amazing! I played through the available missions and the missions are very versatile. I also love that you get to play with all the races, and the multi-angular take on events gives this campaign mod so much character and depth. Having played several other mod compaigns, this one is my favourite to-date :D! Keep em comming :D
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Posted Aug 15, 2014I just played first mission of the campaign and I really like your project. Mission was very good quality: Nice terrain, nice gameplay and you have great amount of dialogue and cutscenes. I hope you have motivation to complete your ambitious goal of 24 missions.
I really think you should make mod for your mission. Now you need to create heroes again for every new mission. I started my own campaign without mod file and I regret that decission later.
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Posted Jul 20, 2014@Hockleberry: Go
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. Good to see you actually trying out the harder difficulties. :) Now, for your points:
Thanks for the feedback, and I hope my answers clears up any confusion. :D
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Posted Jul 16, 2014Played the 2nd mission. So good!! Terrain quality is jaw-dropping. Very Challenging, but not so crazy that I give up. Played it on Hard
Suggestions:
Can't wait to play the next map!! Diggin the story and hopefully I'll have my next map soon!
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Posted May 29, 2014@DudkiSC2: Go
Thaks for the reply and thank you for sharing my opinion. Looking forward to the campaign!
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Posted May 21, 2014Dude...mission was awesome. Your work both inspires me and makes me not want to do my campaign anymore :)
Thanks for the feedback on my map. I really appreciate it. Hopefully, going to get back into it, but have been feeling a little burnt out.
Make sure you put on the CCI page.
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Posted May 16, 2014@emprorsfist: Go
Good question, and no. I agree on that part and I really didn't like that way either. The game speed of each mission will be set to Faster by default, but it can be also be changed manually by simply going into "Gameplay" in the Options menu, so I give you some freedom on that part.
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Posted May 16, 2014@DudkiSC2: Go
Will the difficulties feature locked game speed settings? I never liked that in WoL since it's a really cheap way of boosting challenge...