Who will survive the Tomb of Immortal Darkness? It’s a new five-man dungeon coming to World of Warcraft that’s “deep beneath the crumbling tombstones of Duskwood’s Raven Hill Cemetery.” (Incidentally, Duskwood is my favorite old world area. Oh, the memories.) The dungeon uses Deep Dark technology to give players the ultimate challenge: navigating an instance in total darkness. Is your toon gear’d enough to take on Omgsogoth, the Dark Lord of Twilight?

Clearly this is a silly April Fools gag (I hope that doesn’t spoil anything for you), and it’s just one of a few Blizzard has going on. Another worth mentioning here: Kinect functionality in StarCraft 2!

/dance

UPDATE

The Collector’s Edition at Amazon UK costs 59£ (70€) while at Amazon DE the same box costs 86€. People in the UK: Don’t buy the digital download. Buy the Collector’s Box and get all these:

• The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a 176-page book featuring artwork from the game
• An exclusive 2GB USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor’s dog tag, which comes preloaded with the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion set
• A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, cinematics with director’s commentary, and more
• The official StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty soundtrack CD, containing 14 epic tracks from the game along with exclusive bonus tracks
• StarCraft comic book issue #0, a prequel to the comic series
• A World of Warcraft mini Thor in-game pet that can be applied to all World of Warcraft characters on a single Battle.net account
• Exclusive Battle.net downloadable content, including special portraits for your Battle.net profile, decals to customize your units in-game, and a visually unique version of the terran Thor unit

UPDATE 2

You can buy the CD-Key for 38€ from ibay24.

7/27 is coming soon friends. I’ll see you online.

This is for true StarCraft nerds only. No one else needs to waste their time on this silly unboxing. It’s a freaking game, people. But whatever. Everyone is a freak somehow. So with that said, here’s what might be the first unboxing of the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition. [via Kotaku]

The latest issue of Edge magazine has a fun little article abbot South Korea’s obsession with StarCraft. One of the issues the article brings up is: what happens to the game when Blizzard releases StarCraft II next month? Nobody knows! (My guess is that StarCraft will be around forever, no matter how many sequels Blizzard develops.) Along the same lines, kinda, Blizzard plans to give free copies of StarCraft II to Korean gamers who have an active World of Warcraft account.

Blizzard calls the move “a way of giving something back to such a supportive and skilled community of players.”

The Edge article says that Korean StarCraft players are treated like rock stars. There’s no stigma with being a “professional gamer” like I think there is here in the U.S. Well, maybe “stigma” is a bit harsh, but try telling someone you’re a professional gamer and they’ll be like, “Oh, so you’re a professional bum?” Scoff, huff, etc.

Don’t expect the free StarCraft II deal to be available outside of Korea.

Whatever, it’s the weekend, you can spare two minutes for some Ataricraft 2600.

[via Reddit]

StarCraft II has tentatively been given an Adults Only (18+) rating in South Korea, causing Blizzard a certain amount of consternation. Blizzard has 30 days to appeal the rating. If you think that volcano caused chaos and mayhem, you obviously aren’t familiar StarCraft‘s significance in South Korea.

The game is practically an industry all to itself over there, giving rise to computer cafés called bangs. For as little as $0.50 an hour, a gamer can kill an hour of his or her day playing that most popular of games in StarCraft.

Well, that’s how it used to work. Should the Adults Only rating stick, untold numbers of teens will find themselves without access to one of the biggest sequels of all time. Italics mean business.

Keep in mind that all of the above information is, at the very best, second-hand, as I’ve never been to South Korea, nor have I played StarCraft for any significant amount of time.

This was found on Battle.net forums.

Q. Mac beta please! Any information?

A. We are currently working on a Mac version of the beta and hope to release it sometime in April. Hang in there!!

Of course we still don’t have a concert release date yet but at least Mac gamers can rest easy knowing that the game of long-anticipated sequel will work on their system without any dual-booting nonsense.

Can’t wait, though I do suck at the game.

This video brings back terrible memories of me getting massacred. I used to play quick Starcraft pickup games during boring MCSE lectures back in school. There was this guy in my class that happened to be a bigger nerd than I and the only way he knew how to win was with massive Dragooon armies. I hated him. Anyway, click through for a surprisingly exciting Starcraft II battle in the classic Lost Temple map. It’s too bad that we won’t be able to join in on the fun as the game was delayed until early next year. Suck.

Pricing is “TBD,” which is either an abbreviation for “Ten Billion Dollars” or they’re not sure yet. I’d ballpark it at about $90, since that’s what their other bags cost and this one appears to be identical to the regular bag except for the graphic.

Bad news, guys: Blizzard just “delayed” StarCraft II. (Did it ever have an official release date to begin with?) I just received the devastating electronic mail.

Here’s what Blizzard says:

Today we announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be ready for release by the end of 2009. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

Activision’s CEO said the game should be ready “early next year.”

This news sparked a conversation in the official CrunchGear chatroom: what was the last major game that wasn’t delayed?

The conversation was short-lived because, in reality, it’s a horribly boring thing to talk about.

SteelSeries Unveils New Blizzard Entertainment® Co-Branded StarCraft® II Gaming Surfaces

StarCraft® II QcK Limited Edition Mousepads Provide an Optimized Textured Surface for Smoothness and Glide During Game Play

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of game peripherals and accessories, unveiled a new line of gaming surfaces featuring art from Blizzard Entertainment’s highly anticipated StarCraft® II. The QcK Limited Edition Terran Marine and Kerrigan vs. Zeratul editions are designed with a non-slip rubber base which prevents the pads from sliding, no matter what surface the mousepad is placed on, and is optimized for optical and laser technology providing an overall more reliable gaming experience.

“StarCraft and its expansion have together sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, and we believe StarCraft II will prove equally influential and popular, making this a great opportunity to provide gamers with surfaces that help to improve performance and game play,” said Brian Stech, SteelSeries President of the Americas. “We are incredibly excited to have an opportunity to continue our partnership with the designers from Blizzard Entertainment and develop surfaces that we know StarCraft players will enjoy.”

The SteelSeries QcK Limited Edition Terran Marine and Kerrigan vs. Zeratul gaming surfaces are made of high quality cloth material and optimized textured surface which guarantees both smoothness and glide. The special surface graphic on each mousepad depicts characters from the upcoming StarCraft II, which will pick up where the events of StarCraft: Brood War left off, following familiar characters and new heroes through the next chapter of the series’ epic story.

The gaming surfaces will be available in July 2009 and will be sold for $14.99 from GameStop and Amazon.

By now I’m sure you know that Blizzard doesn’t plan to support LAN in StarCraft II. There’s a petition going around that politely asks Blizzard to reconsider. Said petition has some 65,000 signatures on it. You should sign it, too.

Blizzard says it won’t support LAN in order to focus on “building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games.”

What, where’s the standard “piracy made us do it!” rationale?

While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Oh, there it is. Phew.

Wow, I guess the rogue in me sees this in the complete opposite way. That is, the lack of LAN will actually encourage piracy. Why pay for a game when the company is treating you like a potential criminal? (I suppose you could just skip out on the game altogether, but that’s not nearly as dramatic.) “Sorry, son, we can’t support LAN because we want you to connect to Battle.net every time you double-click the game’s icon so we can authenticate your copy.” Besides, it’s not like RELOADED or whomever won’t crack the game days before its retail release.

If we’ve learned anything, it’s that pirates will figure out how to work around anti-piracy measures. Better, I think, to ignore that segment of the population and instead play to the people who are—or were—100 percent prepared to spend $50+ on the game.

But I’m not a fancy exec in a corner office, so all of this can safely be ignored.

This totally slipped my mind at the weekend, but Blizzard is ramping up for theStarCraft II beta, if the e-mail it sent me (and thousands of other writers, I’m sure) is any indication. Get excited, people!

Now, there’s no set date for the beta, but Blizzard stipulated that prospective beta testers submit their info by June 19.

Provided nothing unusual happens, expect plenty of “HEY CHECK THIS OUT!” updates as the summer progresses.

Of course, you could try to get in on the beta yourself!

I think it’s actually more accurate to say that I failed to Zerg my opponent correctly.

The game looks great, it controls just like the original to be honest, and the graphics are smooth and very detailed. I have this feeling that my old Protoss tactics are going to be of little use in this updated game. Although you’ll be happy to learn that many of your favorite units and buildings are still around and function more or less the same.

Updated with better video. You like that sound? The Blizzard booth is kitty corner from the Rock Band 2 stage, and you know they aren’t going to turn it down.

Some exciting news came out of yesterday’s Blizzard Wordwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea. Wait for it…Starcraft 2 was finally announced. Sure, we dropped a hint that it could be coming out soon and now it’s finally here. The official Starcraft 2 site was officially launched as well with tons of video’s and screenshots. There is no official launch date nor are there any plans for console versions. Oh well. Check the video from the conference after the jump.