tomrlholt

I was playing Legacy of the Void and thought of this column. The game's pretty cheeseball throughout, going to the various planets, recruiting allies and being taunted by the villain, but there's a moment in the final series of missions that I think hits this homework.

The first mission of the game is taking back Aiur after it was overwhelmed in the first Starcraft. Artanis makes a rousing speech, sweeping camera angles showing all the troops inspired, in formation and ready to be deployed, and they beam down and the mission begins.

The last series of missions sees you returning to Aiur again, this time to take out the villain, Amon, and save the galaxy. Once again, as soon as you warp to the planet, Artanis makes another rousing speech and a lot of the same sweeping camera angles are used to show the troops in the same fashion as the first mission, inspiring music playing in the background. Again, cheeseball.

The trick comes a minute later when, after setting up your army, allocating the solarite and talking to your fellow commanders, you press the button to launch the mission and the HUD turns off and the screen goes completely black as Amon remotely turns off your spaceship. Artanis lights up the room with his psi blade and once again, Amon comes out to taunt you.

He does this throughout the whole game: either in-person or through Rohanna, but it's always just impotent taunting. The difference now is turning off the HUD, the method through which you interact with the game, takes away an element of security and control from the player and shows the extent of Amon's power, giving them a taste of the fear the characters feel and gives an impetus to fight him and save the galaxy more than any impotent taunting ever could.