With every new year, the seasons roll back. The landscape changes and the cycle begins anew. Weather? Wouldn’t know about that. We’re talking about StarCraft II, now bracing for a new round of Blizzard and community-made maps to land in its Custom Games section.
The dev team remain schtum on the team maps headed to the pool in 2015, but they’ve already detailed everything 1v1 has to offer:
- Foxtrot Labs LE
- Catallena LE
- Expedition Lost
- Secret Spring
- Vaani Research Station
- Inferno Pools
- Deadwing LE
Missing from that list are King Sejong Station, Overgrowth, Merry Go Round and Nimbus, which have all been removed for the new year.
“As always, we’re looking for a good mix of balanced maps, maps that slightly favor a certain side in a given matchup, as well as maps that play differently compared to what we’re used to seeing,” said Blizzard.
While Vaani Research Station is a “straightforward” sort of map, Secret Spring features three blockable ground paths to your opponent and Expedition Lost offers the choice of taking a third base.
“We wanted to include at least one big macro map this season and Inferno Pools is that map,” said the dev team. “There are some unique choices of grabbing the high yield base as the third or taking the island expansion depending on where players spawn.”
Blizzard wound up reverting to Season 3’s map pool in the latter part of this year, after Season 4’s nostalgia-fueled dream pool concept proved unsuccessful. What do you make of the new year’s offerings? And while we’re at it, those proposed balance changes for Legacy of the Void?