Pearce: StarCraft II development is balancing act between new players and the hardcore

Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce has told VG247 that he's keen to get new players involved with the StarCraft universe with StarCraft II, but that accessibility won't be at the cost of satisfying the existing hardcore.

"We certainly want to be able to expose the franchise to new players," said the company boss.

"But yeah, we have to balance that against serving the existing, passionate StarCraft community. One of our goals is always to make games that are really accessible - easy to learn, difficult to master, right?

"So, a pretty easy learning curve, but a lot of components to the game as far as strategies go that can really help someone that wants to be an expert player and distinguish themselves from the average player."

StarCraft is by far the most popular competitive RTS on the market, but Blizzard comms boss Bob Colayco assured us the sequel would be able to bridge "teh noobs" and the 733t mentalists.

"What you saying: 'Do you want to attract new players, or do you want this to be fan service?' - I don't know if that's an either-or proposition. You can do things to certainly satisfy both, as Frank was mentioning. 'Easy to learn, hard to master' has always been a Blizzard philosophy."

No date for StarCraft II as yet.