Zerg Coverage >> The Zerg Queen

StarCraft II Queen

There has been a fear for adding "hero" units in StarCraft II from the community, and seeing this new Queen unit chopping away Marines with abandon is slightly unnerving for anyone of us. The fact that she "upgrades" and gets better with time will ring another alarm bell, but this isn't really the truth. Yes, a fully upgraded Queen is rather powerful, but if you kill her, your opponents needs to spawn a new one, and evolve her in two steps to have her back. In short, she is a powerful unit (much like a pair of Ultralisks are powerful), she holds the key to the new base defence mechanics of the Zerg, but she isn't really a Hero.

Original StarCraft Queen
Concept Art	Ingame Animation

"Zergish!"

This new use of the Queen is a very interesting twist to the Zerg, making them feel even more "zergish" than in the original game. The Queen of StarCraft was a support unit that seldom was used, and as Browder said to us: "it could have had any other name without anyone taking much notice". They felt that the "Queen" of the Zerg should have some appropriate role and powers, which created the idea of StarCraft II's Queen. With this, Zerg has done away with their "Colonies" gene-strand (Creep- Sunken- Spore-), and this is all now in the Queen's domain. She lays eggs which hatch into creep generators and base defences, and she can use her own abilities to defend the Hive Cluster.

The Lore behind the Queen was not revealed, and by the manner of how those questions were answered, I got the feeling we will have another big announcement of the Single Player part of StarCraft II later on, with some fascinating details. One idea is to assume that the Queens now have evolved to take over some of the Cerebrate's old functions. So, for what we know, let's go into detail on what this new Queen is, and what she does:


Queen Abilities

A Queen needs defence (full pic)

The first major change you will notice is the fact that she is now walking around on the ground. She isn't created as normal units, but births directly from the Hatchery if you have made a Spawning Pool. Her appearance is more worthy of a Swarm Queen, featuring fangs, claws and a much more fearsome "alienesque" look. The first incarnation of the Queen costs 150 minerals, and is in most cases a "must-have" for your base. She only sports a mere 160 hit points, 100 energy, 8x2 damage, light armour without any bonuses, and has a pretty slow walk, so she is best seen well defended by other units. Even a few Zerglings can kill your Queen if you are not careful.


You can also lay Swarm Clutches for 75 minerals, which takes a short time to hatch before they are working as a permanent defence system for air and land to your base. This requires no time from the Queen though, and she can lay a full-fledged base defence in a few seconds if you have the cash, just like a Probe. It is somewhat important to have a few one Swarm Clutches laying about, as the Hydralisks has been moved up in the tech tree which makes the Clutches your only way to defend against air (except for the Queen herself, but she has a very limited range) early on. The Queen can also lay Creep Tumors for 25 minerals that increases your creep radius as well as Shriekers (150 minerals, unfortunately no pics available of any of these buildings), a building that both increase creep radius and enhances the range of all Swarm Clutches in it's radius. The latter can only be built if you have an Evolution Chamber. For 50 energy she can also heal a good portion of a building or unit's health, which can be crucial in some cases.

Swarm-Infested Evolution Chamber, shooting glowing bugs at enemies. (pic 1, pic 2)

Large Queen, Huge Queen!

Deep Tunnel creates a standard (but large) Burrow hole.

When the Hatchery is upgraded to Lair, you will be able to evolve your queen into a Large Queen, which will gain her in total 250 hit points, an armour bonus, 200 energy, 12x2 damage, as well as two very handy new abilities: Deep Tunnel and Swarm Infestation. The Deep Tunnel ability is an instant teleport to any other Zerg building (yes, including opponents in this build) with no energy cost, but a dangerous 15 second cooldown. The Swarm Infestation is an interesting spell cast on friendly buildings to basically make them into Swarm Clutches, attacking any invaders.

The Hive will make the final evolution for the Queen available, letting her morph into a Huge Queen, sporting more health, energy, armour, as well as a final, interesting ability: Toxic Creep. Besides being able to one-shot minor enemy units, she can spend 75 energy and turning a Creep-covered area with poison, hurting any unit (but not buildings) that walks there. This is an ability that could be very good if you are in control of a choke point, letting your enemies fry while trying to get through.


Uses of the Zerg Mistress

Nydus Worms popping up

In the build we were shown at the Press Tour, there are two main uses of the Queen: Against Terran or Protoss she will stay in the bases you occupy, and build the defences as well as creep. The 1x1 tile Swarm Clutches (that could be 2x2 in next build according to Dustin) are very powerful in tight formations together with Shreikers, albeit quite costly. For a mirror fight against the Zerg, she can be an excellent offensive unit, not unlike a Hero. Using the Deep Tunnel ability to teleport straight into your opponent base and create toxic creep under his workers, or lay swarm clutches on his creep are interesting ways to use your Queen. On the other hand, it might turn out to be a bug, and the release version of StarCraft 2 might only allow tunnelling to friendly buildings, and forcing any "Offensive-Queen"-user to work with Nydus Worms.



Final Words

The new Zerg mechanics for Creep, detection, upgrades and movement are all very interesting, and while it totally changes how Zerg works, they feel even more "Zergy" than ever before. The Queen is a very large part of this, and a most interesting change. The question if she works as a Hero or not can be interpreted slightly different. If she dies, you have to get a new one, no "resurrections". She can be used in offensive strategies against other Zerg specifically, but this isn't guaranteed to be this easy in the release. Over all, I think the Queen seems to be more of a "powerful support unit" with offensive abilities than a WarCraft III Hero.

Official Queen shots from Blizzard. (pic 1, pic 2, pic 3, pic 4, pic 5)

Written by Gunnar "Leord" Petzall, 14/3 2008.

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Zerg Coverage >> The Zerg Queen

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