StarCraft II Story Explained: the Whole Plot from Wings of Liberty to Nova Covert Ops

The StarCraft II story is one war told over three games and a mission pack. Wings of Liberty (2010) follows the rebel Jim Raynor, Heart of the Swarm (2013) follows Sarah Kerrigan, Legacy of the Void (2015) follows the protoss Hierarch Artanis, and Nova Covert Ops (2016) follows the ghost Nova Terra after the fighting stops. Between them they tell how Kerrigan was pulled out of the zerg, took her revenge on Emperor Arcturus Mengsk, and then helped all three races kill Amon, the fallen xel'naga who had been pulling strings since the first game. The main trilogy runs from 2504 to 2508, starting four years after the Brood War. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops; StarCraft: Evolution)

Wings of Liberty: Raynor brings Kerrigan back (2504)#

The trilogy opens on Mar Sara, where Raynor is running a small, broke rebellion against the Terran Dominion and drinking too much. His old friend Tychus Findlay, just out of cryo-prison, turns up with a job: steal xel'naga artifacts from Dominion digs and sell them to the Moebius Foundation. Then the zerg invade Mar Sara and many other Dominion worlds at once, and Raynor's men only escape because the Hyperion arrives to pull them out. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

The artifact hunt carries Raynor's Raiders across the sector. They grab pieces from the fanatical Tal'darim on Monlyth and Xil, and rob the Tal'darim again on Typhon while its star collapses. On Tyrador VIII the Raiders destroy Moebius data cores for the foundation's leader, Dr Emil Narud, before Kerrigan can reach them. Side stories run alongside: the Raiders rescue colonists on Agria and pick up Dr Ariel Hanson, deal with the spectre Gabriel Tosh, and broadcast proof of Mengsk's crimes at Tarsonis from the UNN studios on Korhal. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

The turn comes when Zeratul visits Raynor and hands him a crystal holding his memories. Through it Raynor sees Zeratul chase a prophecy from Ulaan to the preservers on Zhakul and then to the Overmind's corpse on Aiur. There the spirit of Tassadar explains that a being called the Dark Voice had enslaved the Overmind, and that the Overmind made Kerrigan as the one creature who might free the zerg. The last vision shows the future: humanity gone, the galaxy burning, the Swarm led by hybrids, and the protoss making their final stand because Kerrigan, the only one who could have saved them, was killed. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Raynor's backer turns out to be Prince Valerian Mengsk, who has been funding Moebius to rebuild the artifact and wants to use it on Kerrigan. The Raiders take the last piece from a Tal'darim mothership, join General Horace Warfield for the assault on Char, and hold out while the assembled Keystone charges. Its blast wipes out the zerg around it and leaves Kerrigan mostly human. In the hive, Tychus reveals that Arcturus Mengsk freed him on the condition that he kill her. He raises his gun and Raynor shoots him, then carries Kerrigan out at dawn. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Heart of the Swarm: Kerrigan's revenge (2505)#

Raynor and Valerian smuggle Kerrigan off Char and hide her in an Umojan lab, with the Dominion hunting them the whole way. About three weeks after Char, Dominion forces led by Nova storm the lab. Kerrigan escapes, but Raynor is captured, and soon the UNN reports that he has been executed. Kerrigan decides Mengsk has to die and goes back to the Swarm to do it, taking a zerg leviathan along with her old servants Abathur and Izsha. (StarCraft II: Flashpoint; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

She rebuilds the Swarm brood by brood. On Kaldir she stops a protoss expedition from warning Shakuras. On Char she brings the rogue broodmother Zagara to heel and breaks Warfield's army. Warfield dies at her hands while begging her to let his wounded go, and she lets their shuttles leave. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Zeratul then shows her Zerus, the zerg birthworld, and tells her the prophecy needs her to be remade there. Kerrigan enters the first spawning pool and comes out as the Primal Queen of Blades, stronger than she ever was under the Overmind. She beats the primal zerg pack leaders, and Dehaka joins her. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Mengsk then tells her Raynor is alive and will die if she attacks. Kerrigan finds him on the prison ship Moros and breaks him out, but Raynor sees what she has become and walks away. Next the infested Alexei Stukov leads her to Skygeirr Station, where Narud is breeding hybrids. Kerrigan kills him there, and he turns out to be the same being as Samir Duran. As he dies he warns her that Amon is coming back. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

The campaign ends on Korhal in the Battle of Korhal. The Swarm breaks the planet's defences, and Dehaka's primal zerg, cut off from the hive mind, wreck a weapon built to kill any zerg linked to it. Kerrigan fights into the imperial palace, where Mengsk turns the Keystone, the xel'naga artifact from Char, against her. Raynor arrives and crushes the device Mengsk is using to control it, and Kerrigan kills Mengsk with a psionic blast. Valerian takes the throne, and Kerrigan leads the Swarm away to hunt Amon. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft: Evolution)

Legacy of the Void: the protoss and the End War (2506)#

A three mission prologue, Whispers of Oblivion, follows Zeratul as he chases the last piece of the prophecy. He learns the Tal'darim have been kidnapping protoss for Moebius to turn into hybrids, then breaks into the Tal'darim-held xel'naga temple on Atrias, where Highlord Ma'lash is taking orders from Amon. Amon's power brings the temple down and Zeratul barely escapes with the final piece of the prophecy, heading for Artanis. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Artanis leads the Golden Armada to retake Aiur, and Amon springs his trap. He takes over every protoss linked to the Khala, the psionic link they all share. Zeratul arrives too late to stop it, and dies cutting Artanis's nerve cords to free him. Artanis escapes with the survivors aboard the Spear of Adun, an ancient arkship that the phase-smith Karax gets working. The End War has begun. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Most of the campaign is Artanis gathering allies. He helps Matriarch Vorazun save the Nerazim, then destroys Shakuras with Amon's forces still on it. On Korhal he saves Augustgrad from the Moebius Corps with Raynor's help, and takes the Keystone, which Karax works out can trap Amon. He wins over the Purifiers, the machine minds whose Fenix copy Talandar becomes their voice, and helps Alarak kill Highlord Ma'lash so the Tal'darim turn on their old god. At Ulnar he fights beside Kerrigan and learns the other xel'naga are dead. Each of those allies has a short profile in the StarCraft character guide. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The army goes back to Aiur, destroys the body Amon has been growing, and faces the possessed Golden Armada under Executor Selendis. Artanis breaks Amon's hold on her, and the possessed protoss cut their own nerve cords. With no hosts left, Amon is thrown back into the Void, and the protoss retake their homeworld in the Reclamation of Aiur. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

How it ends#

The Into the Void epilogue finishes the trilogy. Amon survived his banishment, so Kerrigan calls on Artanis and Raynor, and they follow her through the gate at Ulnar into the Void to finish him where he lives. Inside, the dying xel'naga Ouros gives his essence to Kerrigan. She becomes a xel'naga herself and destroys Amon for good. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

The aftermath settles each thread. Zagara takes command of the Swarm. Artanis leads a Daelaam without the Khala on a reclaimed Aiur. Valerian stays on as Emperor of the Dominion. Some time later, Kerrigan comes back in human form to the bar where it all started, and Raynor leaves with her. The epilogue puts the final battle soon after Aiur, while the timeline printed in StarCraft: Evolution dates it to 2508. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void; StarCraft: Evolution)

Nova Covert Ops: the coda#

Nova Covert Ops picks up after the End War. Valerian's reign is under pressure, ghosts have gone missing, and feral zerg keep hitting Dominion worlds. Nova wakes in a Defenders of Man base with no memory of how she got there, and Valerian gives her the ship Griffin and a Covert Ops Crew to dig into it. (StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops)

She finds that the Defenders are luring zerg onto civilian worlds to make the Emperor look weak, and that she had been mind wiped after helping them set up psi emitters. With terrazine from an uneasy deal with Alarak she gets her memories back and learns the group is run by General Carolina Davis. Valerian exposes the plot on Vardona, Davis escapes, and Nova hunts her to the Cerros shipyards, where Davis tries to cripple the fleet with an experimental war machine. Valerian orders Nova to bring Davis in alive. Nova kills her anyway and leaves with her crew as a free agent, and Valerian lets her go. (StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops)

Do you need to play StarCraft 1 first?#

No, but it helps a lot. Wings of Liberty recaps enough to follow along, and the whole of StarCraft II takes place after the Brood War. What you lose by skipping StarCraft and Brood War is the setup: Mengsk abandoning Kerrigan to the zerg on Tarsonis, her infestation into the Queen of Blades, Tassadar's sacrifice against the Overmind, and Kerrigan's betrayal of everyone in Brood War. Those are the reasons Raynor feels guilty, Kerrigan wants Mengsk dead, and Zeratul trusts neither of them. If you'd rather read than play, the StarCraft timeline covers both games, and the Second Great War and End War pages cover the StarCraft II wars in more depth. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Test yourself: take the StarCraft 2 quiz, twelve questions on Raynor, Kerrigan, Artanis and the fall of Amon. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm; StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)