Heart of the Swarm- Evolution Guide: Talkin’ About an Evolution

During the course of the missions in the Heart of the Swarm campaign, Starcraft II will provide you a number of opportunities to improve and alter your Zerg, customizing them to better fit your playstyle and preferences.  These opportunities come in two forms- each of the units affected has one option that you can reselect between missions as much as you like, and a second that is activated by taking a special mission while in the Evolution Pit- and cannot be changed for that instance of the campaign.  While some of these options are a matter of choosing between a more micro-management style and a more macro-management style, others can completely alter the overall purpose of a given unit.

In addition to these evolution options, Kerrigan herself comes with a wide array of options- as you complete missions she will gain ‘levels’ that increase her base capabilities, and there are optional side goals on many missions that will grant her additional ‘levels’.  At certain checkpoints in her level progression, Kerrigan will gain access to new ‘tiers’ of abilities, from which you may pick one to enable.  As with the non-mission-triggered choices regarding the various breeds of Zerg units, Kerrigan’s abilities can be reselected at any point between missions.  To take matters even further, each of Kerrigan’s tiers includes two options- until you complete a particular mission on a particular planet in the campaign, at which point a third option is added to each set.

Overall, this grants you even more customizability than the Wings of Liberty campaign granted you, partly because none of the options you choose will cost you resources during the course of a mission (unlike the mercenary groups you can ‘hire’ as part of Wings of Liberty), and partly because most of your choices can be altered to suit exactly what your current mission is.

You will want to be very careful with your selections based on the Evolution Missions, though, as they can radically change the function of some units- not a choice to make lightly, and since you’re stuck with it, you’ll want to think long and hard about how you want to use the unit you’re altering.  This is particularly highlighted by the Hydralisk and Mutalisk missions, as their ‘strain’ choices will determine which form they take when altered while on the field and may decide for you whether you even want to bother with the transformations or not.

Without further ado, it’s time to look at the units one by one.