'StarCraft 2' Latest Updates: Blizzard To Advance AI Gaming Research By Opening API?

BlizzCon 2016 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California gave gamers and technology enthusiasts big revelations on "StarCraft 2." Particularly BlizzCon gave a glimpse of what the future has in store for one of Blizzard's most popular eSports games "StarCraft 2."

"StarCraft 2: Wings Of Liberty" was in released in July 2010 and became the fastest-selling strategy game of all time. "StarCraft 2" is a televised professional sport in South Korea and has an extremely dedicated fan base.

Nova Mission Pack 3 will be available 11/22 in the US! #SC2 pic.twitter.com/MCQjxeVlQc

— StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 4, 2016

  Like all Blizzard games released in recent years, "StarCraft 2" enjoyed excellent post release support. The release of "StarCraft 2: Wings Of Liberty" was followed by two major expansion packs.

Introducing your next Co-op comra..err-commander, Alexei Stukov! See What He Can Do: https://t.co/ayPQ1uukMr pic.twitter.com/2VbtHz1psI — StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 4, 2016

These are "StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm" released in 2013 and "StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void" released in 2015. With a loyal fan base to take its lifeline well into 2016, recent "StarCraft 2" releases by Blizzard now includes the Nova Covert Ops DLC packs.

In attendance at BlizzCon 2016 was Google researcher Oriol Vinyals with an interesting announcement on "StarCraft 2." According to the Google researcher, "StarCraft 2" will now provide a platform for Artificial Intelligence developers around the world.

With the help of "StarCraft 2" research on AI in gaming is expected to advance progress. To date, AI technology has been for search engine logic, medical procedures, advertising and most recently automated cars.

Blizzard plans to open up the "StarCraft 2" API to AI developers to plug in their own AI routines. Use of "StarCraft 2" API for gamers means that playing single player against the computer will eventually become more refined and less machine-like.

For AI developers, "StarCraft 2" will provide a massive platform to test, refine and improve upon their own AI programs, which may one day be used in areas other than gaming. The parties involved all hope that this collaboration of Blizzard and the Deepmind AI program via "StarCraft 2" will yield benefits outside of recreation.

Involving "StarCraft 2" is a particularly clever step for Blizzard. Given the ongoing progression of technology, for gamers the next big evolution after an ever-increasing number of onscreen pixels and virtual realism will be in artificial intelligence.

No one however, thinks that AI development in games will be an easy task. Emulating human behaviour, while keeping computer-controlled opponents challenging - yet most of all fun - is an incredibly difficult design challenge. "StarCraft 2" is currently available on Mac and Windows PC.