StarCraft II Collector’s Edition Revealed

Blizzard outdoes itself with the StarCraft II Collector’s Edition: how can $99 feel like it’s too little to pay for this much awesome?

As someone who has bought all of the collector’s editions for World of Warcraft and its expansions, I was beginning to feel a little bit jaded. Sure, the art books are nice and the behind the scenes DVDs are interesting, and I never grow tired of someone in WoW asking me where I got a mini Diablo as a pet, but I was starting to wonder whether all of that swag was worth the price tag. And then Blizzard comes out with the details for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty collector’s edition and I start to giggle shamefully like the fanboy I am. I don’t even care that it costs a hundred bones. Do want.

There’s no date set yet, but the beta has been out for a while so we may get a release date soon. Wings of Liberty is only the first of three StarCraft II titles and focuses on the Terran race, with a Zerg and Protoss campaign to follow.

Here’s what you get for all of that love:

• 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

The Jim Raynor USB dogtags with the original games are just sweet, and the fact that you can customize your units in game, that’s pure awesome-sauce. The rest is standard gravy, but knowing Blizz, its standard gravy tastes pretty damn good, especially when its poured over the chicken-fried steak of actually playing SC2. (I think I’ve exhausted this metaphor, don’t you?)

Retailing for $100 is a bold move, considering other CEs top out around $80-90. But some inexplicable reason, I think this one might be worth it.

I’m just pissed that I’m going to have to buy a total three of these for StarCraft II, as I’m sure there will be special editions for Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Damn you Blizzard for being so awesome!