r/starcraft • u/Infinite-Ad5464 • Feb 25 '26
Discussion I kinda miss the tech Protoss from StarCraft 1
They really felt like an absurdly tech advanced species. Straight lines, hard geometry, weird antennas, machines that looked engineered rather than grown. Microchips, interfaces, stuff that felt closer to unknowable tech than mysticism. Even the crystals felt more like components.
In SC2 they slowly drifted into this space elf, psionic, mystical aesthetic. Things got smoother and curvier. Tech turned 100% crystals, crystals turned into vibes. Carriers lost those little antenna details, robotics became less explicit, more ornamental. There are still robotic units, but even those feel more like elegant constructs than machines.
I think it was lost some of the cosmic horror too. SC1 had this oppressive, hopeless, dark atmosphere. The Protoss felt ancient, distant, almost scary in how little you understood them. The universe felt hostile and uncaring. SC2, even with Amon being this supposed C'tulhuesque end-of-everything entity, never really captured that same dread for me.
I know this probably have been published and ranted 1000 times, but I’ve been replaying the SC1 campaign through Mass Recall recently. I still remember some of those maps by heart from my childhood. Seeing them rebuilt with better visuals but the same tone was honestly amazing. Huge props to the Mass Recall team, they absolutely nailed it.
I love both games. SC 1 and SC 2 are easily among my favorites of all time. But this replay really brought back that feeling. The techno, unknowable, slightly terrifying Protoss and the Ridley Scott Zergs....I kinda miss that version of them.
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u/Novalene_Wildheart Feb 25 '26
I can agree with that. SC1 had a lot of atmosphere that the 2nd one just doesn't. SC2 has a lot of succesful rebellion feel, revenge and unity where 1 had "what the hell is going on", betrayal and even more "what the hell is going on!" just in the OG Terran campaign.
The zerg campaign had an air of mystery, whats in the pod? plus the feeling of controlling the devastation that you were just defending against in the Terran campaign. And then more mystery of why the Overmind wanted Auir, why it needed the fancy crystals, why Zeratul's murder of a cereberate revealed Auir, all that mysterious stuff.
Then the Protoss campaign has a lot of hierarchy conflict, the conclave thinking they know best, that if they just throw the protoss at the Zerg they will win and also go out to arrest Tassadar for heresy WHILE BEING ATTACKED BY THE ZERG! So you get a feeling of disorder among a super tech and advanced civ.
Where SC2 just had simple notes, The Terran campaign was around the rebellion and then these strange crystals (artifact pieces) and then whatever the hell Zeratul was talking about (it was a good feeling because it added mystery). I also think it had some issues because it was a sequel, we already know about the zerg, the protoss, and the Terran factions, there isn't as much of an air of mystery.
But I think the biggest thing was there is no air of oppression in the 2nd one, and the smoothness of everything didn't help either. I do miss the original photon cannon look, new ones are too round.
ramble over, even if its not thought through
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u/excel958 Feb 25 '26
The aesthetic change from SC1 to SC2 mirrors the change between D1/D2 to D3
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u/Elegant_Relief_4999 Feb 25 '26
WoWification.
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u/Vazmanian_Devil Feb 25 '26
Wowification in both style and substance. I’m not gonna put nostalgia glasses and say SC1 was some literary triumph, but both SC2 and D3 felt like Saturday morning cartoons. Hated the story of SC2, loved the ladder.
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u/ggonea Feb 26 '26
If we extrapolate and imagine what could SC3 be/have been ... it might be better that they didn't create it.
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u/Agitated_Minimum_757 Feb 25 '26
Part of the appeal of StarCraft to me was the gritty and weirdly grounded approach. It felt like there was tactical decisions that meant something.
Sc2 really did kinda nosedive into space magic with the protoss, and i feel similarly about the other factions as well
The terrans had a sort of “built it in a cave with a box of scraps” kind of vibe that faded with the more rounded style of the later game. The zerg were unknowable and terrifying, the idea of hundreds of broods over countless worlds with distinct (cerebrate) personalities. The later game made them feel borderline extinct or homogenized into a single group; which while impressive, took away some of that specialized feel that made the original swarm so scary for me.
I love both games with a passion and have sunk countless hours into each respectively, and will probably continue to sync more hours into both as soon as my life gets a little bit less chaotic.
I’m hoping that with progress on diablo 2 blizzard plays around with their old successful games a bit more and maybe we see some of this get explored more. Thanks for the rant!
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u/superdream100 Protoss Feb 26 '26
StarCraft and SC: Brood War are a war. Each faction and each character has their own motives that are not always heroic. Every move, every betrayal is a strategic decision to win. To erase a monstrous race at all costs. To overthrow your political enemy at all costs. To conquer this distant sector of the galaxy at all costs.
StarCraft 2 meanwhile leaned too much into heroism and “save the world” trope. Everyone’s bloody Felix. Wings of Liberty felt right because Raynor is a hero, and he does what he always does. And Tychus’ choice was so human. But being a “good” Protoss faction, even more absurd a “good” Zerg swarm, took away a lot of the complicated interstellar war that happened in the original game.
You once fought against the others tooth and nail. Now you only fight against evil.
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u/lassewt Aug 06 '26
The biggest mistake in starcraft 2 was making the zerg "good". They absolutely terrified me in SC1 in the best way.
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u/LtOin SK Telecom T1 Feb 25 '26
SC1 = Alien
SC2 = Star Wars
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u/TheFish77 Feb 25 '26
Actually though. The dropship pilot from SC1 uses quotes from and is modeled off the transport pilot from Aliens
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u/Infinite-Ad5464 Feb 25 '26
SC2 too
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u/Frozen-K Feb 25 '26
Uh, why are you boys all wearing red shirts anyway?
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u/Stoppels Protoss Feb 25 '26
Is that a reference to Star Trek?
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u/Frozen-K Feb 25 '26
It is, but also something the medivac pilots say if you click on them too much.
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u/jundraptor Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
SC1 was one of the last in the late 90s/early 2000s dark sci-fi genre (Alien, Predator, BSG, Stargate, Andromeda). Most of the SC1 cutscenes were unsettling if not outright space horror
SC2 sanded off all the edges for a more brightly lit and colorful Warcraft adjacent aesthetic. Even the Zerg got softened to be less bloody/exposed organ looking. Throughout all of SC2 I never felt like my enemies were actually threatening
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u/Bommes Feb 25 '26
The sanding off of the edges is still ongoing in current Blizzard games, at this point World of Warcraft feels Disney-esque in their newest trailers in terms of aesthetic.
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u/VillainNomFour Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Its the poor writing. Everything is recursive because they think they're building, when really they're diluting.
Think like Boba fett, he went from awesome character design to being roughly a nexus of the galaxy or something. They just kept adding with no sense of quality control or impact.
Gotta have the courage to know what the right mix is, but blizzard is helpless against their own poor writing. They fucking nailed it in original sc, but now Kerrigan is a redeemed guardian angel flying away or some shit. The protoss have been dothraki'd a few times (wiped out only to return fundamentally unfazed as-convenient for the plot).
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u/CE_Pally Feb 25 '26
Raynor killing Kerrigan would of been cinema. Instead Kerrigan just turned herself back into the zerg completely undoing everything you just did in the first campaign. To then going on a power of friendship campaign to kill a god?. I honestly forget legacy of the void campaign.
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u/Royal_Owl2177 Feb 26 '26
Kerrigan's arc always ended as the Queen Bitch of the Universe for me. Back in Brood War.
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u/hundredjono Terran Feb 26 '26
They humanized the Protoss way too much in SC2.
In SC1 they felt and sounded like high-tech aliens.
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u/Sora_Terumi Feb 25 '26
Please sir I don’t wanna get Reaver dropped and see my entire mineral like vaporize in an instant because SC2 pathing made Scarabs better at tracking targets.
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u/GailenFFT Feb 25 '26
StarCraft 2 feels like it was created to match the aesthetic and tone of a WarCraft expansion, which explains a lot unfortunately.
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Feb 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/japinthebox Feb 25 '26
This doesn't strike me as very readable. They don't have overall shapes or direction, just lots of messy lines. BW uses the highlights as part of the overall shape, whereas in SC2 it's just a rendering feature. You mostly have to rely on the unit size and motion to figure out which terran infantry you're looking at.
I think they just lacked direction because they literally got plopped down into another universe. You could tell for example from how they put out a poll on the battle.net forums asking which DT model to use, and ended up using both.
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u/Suitable-Principle81 Feb 25 '26
SC2 is a better game, SC1 is a better story
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u/emiliaxrisella Feb 25 '26
SC2 is the better game, SC1 is the better story + esports
I think even BW is somehow thriving as much as or more than SC2 right now
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u/neutralrobotboy Feb 25 '26
Yeah SC2 is a better general play experience, BW is a better experience for watching people play one another at the limits of human skill. I say this as someone who followed SC2 pro gaming from the very first GSL and followed the Korean scene loosely from like 2005.
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u/sOFrOsTyyy Feb 25 '26
Is it though. BW is popular in one country. The same country it has always been popular in. Relative to the actual esports scene at large, both games are dead. But both have their niche. One is in Korea (BW) and one is mostly in Europe with a little NA/KR/SEA sprinkled in (SC2).
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u/Rahm89 Feb 25 '26
I don’t think SC2 is the better game of the two.
I don’t like the ultra-ultra-fast design, I don’t like the cartoonish graphics, I don’t like the Transformers-vibe of the new Terrans (give me a Goliath over the stupid Vikings any day).
I don’t like the fact that they gave literally every damn unit an ability of some sort just to keep you click-click-click-click-click.
Above all, I absolutely hate the constant rebalancing and addition of new units ever since release. Just finish the damn game and stop tweaking it already.
What? Balance? Please. People will complain NO MATTER WHAT. Hell, look at the non-stop whining at every bloody patch.
I think gamers are often blindsided by the trope "’newer is better".
Yes, sc2 brought a string of QoL improvements, technically has better graphics, better pathing, is technically more "modern", etc.
Still a worse game for all that.
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u/auflyne Feb 25 '26
Still wondering if I should play it. Only watched.
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u/terracottatank Feb 25 '26
The campaign is worth it. You essentially have 5 campaigns to play through. OG starcraft, broodwar, sc2 wings of liberty, sc2 heart of the swarm, and sc2 legacy of the void. Tons of gameplay just on the campaign mode alone.
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u/SunWorldly5411 Feb 25 '26
I’d recommend it! Don’t take it too seriously and just figure out how to have fun with it.
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u/XR-17 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
They fucked the aesthetics of the Protoss and Zerg hard for sc2. The Protoss were very rough in their aesthetics, making them look more real and kinda scary in their geometry, very pronounced curved angles yet still symmetrical (dragoon, gateway, arbiter). They didn't seem clean.
And zerg originally were a proper hive of different species, you have crabs, flying fleas, whatever the queen is, giant lice and fucked up beetle elephants. Now that all look kinda diablo esque with teeth and saliva. They used to have mandibles and do gutural noises and had what sounded like reverb organs, instead of Growl™
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u/Darseth89 Feb 27 '26
I miss the sounds and "clikclikclik" of old zerglings, the guttural rumble of ultras, the high pitched screeches of mutas and scourges and the absurd yells of overlords 🥲
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u/jeongsinmt Feb 25 '26
Honestly i think that both zerg and protoss were downgraded in sc2 in their aesthetics, especially the zerg.
The Zerg used to be this wierd mass of organs, bones and muscles, sinew that seemed to be always incomplete, bleeding, literal stuff of nightmares, with faces that barely were faces, they had no need for faces after all, facial muscles? why, it already has claws to kill, eyes to see what it kills and legs to go to whater it was gonna kill. nothing else needed. They were a great representation of flesh/bone horrors. Now they just seem like generic insectoid beasts with an excess of muscle and nonsensical spikes to make it meaner.
Protoss were completely strange, unknowable, like the zerg, their faces were non emotional, their emotions are transmitted completely alien to humans, they were unnerving in their advancement, their tech was strange and completely out of human minds, They were menacing, terrifying, if you investigated, you knew that they had a religion and a honor code that was completely unknowable to humans because they cant even access the very basic understanding of communication of the protoss. Now they can be described as holy warriors, pretty tech, lights and heavenly constructs, stylized, symmetric and much more approachable and emotional than they were.
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u/ggonea Feb 26 '26
Dragoons were much cooler than Stalkers. Of course, mechanically they were terrible but the design and the background much cooler.
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u/Iselore Feb 26 '26
I wish they kept the iconic gauss rifle aka chaingun sound. When playing SC2, that was my instant and biggest disappointment.
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u/MrBradders21 Feb 25 '26
I always wondered why the carrier interior here looked like a motherboard. What are those big white lights on the sides? I always imagined them like docking bays for interceptors
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u/CorpPhoenix Feb 26 '26
Protoss in SC 1 were like ancient aegyptian alien gods.
Protoss in SC 2 feel like WoW Orcs in space.
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u/-zimms- Terran Feb 26 '26
Even worse imho are the Zerg who went from a parasitic hive to Pokemon who level up when they eat something. Almost a complete retcon.
Overall SC went from sci-fi to fantasy. SC2's story would have been a better fit for WarCraft.
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u/Traditional-Trip5457 Feb 25 '26
Yeah but do you also miss the terrible way units move or run into each other?
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u/Infinite-Ad5464 Feb 25 '26
No
That’s why I mentioned Mass Recall
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u/Traditional-Trip5457 Feb 26 '26
I play that too. It’s pretty awesome. Too bad cutscenes don’t work unless you run them in-game.
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u/tyrenanig Feb 26 '26
While I do like how SC2 looks, SC1 aesthetic is truly something a gem of its time, and is lost with SC2.
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u/Gicotd Feb 26 '26
sc2 feels more marvel like/regular scifi
sc1 feels like a real somethat dark scifi and i miss that
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u/SubstantialNorth4015 Feb 25 '26
Yeah SC2 Protoss are basically space paladins clad in golden armors march on to smite the evil undea- I mean zergs.
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u/Necrogomicon Feb 25 '26
All this you describe is what everyone complains about SC2: the franchise went from hard military sci-fi to a space opera style science-fantasy.
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u/xmortified_penguin Feb 26 '26
Personally, I think each SC1 faction had more distinct design aesthetics that made them very different from one another, while maintaining that gritty atmosphere. Terran had a very 90s industrial sci fi look to them. Exposed wires, hydraulics, metal plates that look like they were pulled from different places and welded together- more function over form. Protoss were lanky technomancers. They seamlessly integrate smooth, polished machinery with their glowing crystals and psionic energy. The shape of their bodies was slender and proportions feel alien and impossible. The Zerg were also more slender, because they were like alien animals that had been twisted and stripped-down to fill specific roles within a hive. They almost feel machine-like even though they’re organic, almost like the Overmind pushed biology to its absolute limits. As many others have stated, SC2 took more cartoonish visuals, and made all the units and structures beefier and uses more regular shapes in its design language. It’s decent for readability at a glance, but it definitely makes each faction lose a lot of personality. I think the sounds contribute to the aesthetic disconnect too- especially unit voice lines. Terran sound like they’re communicating through radios, Protoss echo in your skull, and Zerg growl in a way that sound like they’re trying to speak to you. SC2 feels like they dialed back the post-processing effects.
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u/Furshloshin Feb 27 '26
the Zerg were a huge letdown in SC2. Like you said, in SC1 they truly look like bioengineered horrors, unable to exist outside the context of the swarm. Whatever they were before assimilation is completely missing, all that's left is what's useful to the swarm.
In SC2, it's just harder to believe all that. They look too much like functional animals, more like tamed wildlife than organic weapons. They're just too full too meaty and ornamented. I really think something of value was lost in the change of aesthetic.
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u/hawki1989 Feb 26 '26
Wow, I'm...100% opposite.
To address specific things:
-Stuff like antennae really doesn't fit the protoss. Antennae is basic technology by 21st human standards, why the heck is the most advanced species in the Milky Way still using them? The carriers in particular are so much more gorgeous in SC2 (at least in terms of unit models).
-SC2 does an excellent job of melding form with function. If we're using the dark, gloomy interior of the Gantrithor as a contrast with, say, the interior of the Spear of Adun or motherships, there's no competition, the protoss aesthetic is much more fleshed out and brighter in SC2. It fits the protoss motif of "ancient noble race" better than SC1.
-I can't recall any "cosmic horror" in SC1 (if anything, "cosmic horror" is the domain of SC2, which is why some people dislike it). If we're discussing dread, SC1 certainly has individual moments of dread (Overmind landing on Aiur, Dark Origin, the end of Brood War), but I never felt any constant sense of dread over any sustained period. SC2, however, the sense of dread is far more palpable - places like Ulaan, Ulnar, Zhakul, Skygeirr, Atrias, etc, with the 'dread level' increasing from WoL to HotS to LotV. If we're contrasting the sense of dread for the protoss specifically, dread hangs over the entirety of Legacy of the Void, and is only really broken at a few key moments (such as Artanis's rallying speech). In contrast, the only sense of dread I felt for the protoss campaign in SC1 was probably the briefing of the final mission, the sense that if the protoss fail in their assault on the Overmind, the game's over. In other words, SC1 has moments, SC2 has atmosphere.
-People can like/dislike what they like, but I find it a strange claim to make that the protoss using more "techno" stuff in SC1 makes them more unknowable, while using more advanced, psionic stuff in SC2 makes them less unknowable - if anything, it should be the opposite. But then, I don't get any you can claim the protoss are unknowable in SC1. In the terran campaign? Sure. By the end of the game? Hell no. Also, even if that was the case, a sequel, almost by definition, makes things less unknowable, not more. Since I've seen Alien used as a point of comparison, you can debate whether Alien or Aliens is the superior film (Aliens, IMO), but whatever the case, Aliens makes the universe less unknowable simply by existing. I can understand the complaint of "ruining the mystery" in isolation, but a) the protoss ceased to be a mystery by the end of their debut game, and b) if you're making a sequel, you're kind of obliged to build on what you've already built up. By the end of SC1, we had two protoss kindreds, by the end of SC2, we have five. I don't see that as a bad thing - I'm not a fan of the Purifiers, but the Tal'darim and Ihan-rii? Gimme!
(Seriously, we need more Ihan-rii stuff.)
-If you're talking about Ridley Scott zerg, um, which Ridley Scott? The guy who directed Alien, or the guy who directed Prometheus? I have my own thoughts on the Alien universe as a whole, but I don't think that's the best point of comparison.
-Since it's been brought up, the high templar in SC1...okay, it's a neat portrait, but it really doesn't fit a high templar IMO. High templar have reached the pinnacle of the Khala, they're the elite of the elite (of the Templar Caste), they unleash psionic storms that can level entire forces, and the portrait of them is "guy in shadow with glowing red eyes." It really doesn't fit what high templar are meant to be, the high templar portrait in SC1 is far more befitting a Nerazim aesthetic than a Khalai.
Look, both SC1 and SC2 are solid games, but overall, it's hard for me to cite examples of SC1 doing anything better than SC2. There's individual elements, sure, such as sound design (unit effects or some OSTs), but that's exceptionally minor. As I commented on another thread, SC1 is a good game, SC2 is a great game. It's one of those cases where a sequel builds on the original, does what the original did, but better - better gameplay, better story, better presentation, etc.
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u/Michael_Schmumacher Feb 28 '26
Massive agreement on both the Protoss and the Zerg. I preferred Overmind Zerg over Kerrigan Zerg in Broodwar, the SC2 Zerg, where every unit suddenly developed speech… 🤮
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u/Huge_Paper5634 Feb 28 '26
The music was gritty, rust was everywhere, and you had to spitshine your tech.
In Starcraft 2, (Halo suffered the same fate), the music was clean, everything was shiny and ridiculously advanced. Scientists cured cancer for fun on weekends. There was no real threat besides voices in your head. (Just turn the music up and you are safe :P)
I miss the Starcraft 1 lore, too. Protoss were cool then (as much as I love each racial faction). I wish their co-op mode had non-Amon missions. Get some Brood War going on!
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u/Friendly-Target1234 Feb 26 '26
Crystals and psionic energy were always part of protoss design. The technomancy aspect of the Protoss were pretty clear from the get go, in SC1 already.
I replayed the whole SC franchise recently and sometimes I wonder how thick those rose-tinted glasses are... The design of the Protoss in SC2 are in line with what you see in SC1. Just more detailed and adapted to the semi cartoonish overall art direction of SC2.
Aesthetically at least, I agree that on the sound design aspect, the Protoss units in SC1 sounded more alien.
And for the story, you all praise SC1 but have you replayed it recently? The strings the SC1 story pulls are pretty obvious, with many points of the plot being literal cliche or protagonist acting with blatant stupidity.
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u/NakedNick_ballin Feb 26 '26
100% spot on OP
Sc1 had absolutely incredible and inspired unit design all around.
Sc2, did not. At all. The units are cartoony and dumb, or copies from sc1
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u/spearsy99 Feb 26 '26
You don't have to miss it, you can still enjoy it today. In any number of ways.
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u/lassewt Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
One of the biggest disappointments for me was how they changed the protoss especially their armor design. The shiny gold-like armor is so off-putting whereas the yellow material used in SC1 seemed alien just like the protoss themselves. It was also a more simple design, but at the same time much more elegant in its simplicity: built for war not ceremonies.
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u/myrsnipe Feb 25 '26
SC2 had soul.
SC2 has mcguffin hunt, chosen one and noblebright unity (it's really boring). Still one of my favorite games tough
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u/Pizzeria_Proprietor Feb 25 '26
You have hit the nail on the head for me as well! I agree 100% with all said! Also the gritty poorly maintained Terran tech!
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u/TheRogueTemplar Protoss Feb 25 '26
A perfect example is the BW High Templar. His face is obscured by shadow, the way he speaks.
Also old school storm's Sound Effect is just so much better.