StarCraft Zerg Overhaul: Heart of the Swarm

**** UPDATED FOR 4.5 CYGNUS ****

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The Swarm does not research. It evolves.

StarCraft Zerg Overhaul: Heart of the Swarm brings StarCraft II's Zerg to Stellaris as a complete gameplay overhaul: the species, the Queen of Blades and her council, every ship and station replaced with Zerg creatures, a custom homeworld, and a progression built from the ground up around evolution rather than technology. Over 130 custom assets and a story that runs from the first hatchery on Char to the Behemoth Leviathan.

You begin on Char with Kerrigan on the throne and Abathur, Zagara and Izsha at her side. Nothing else. No random advisers, no borrowed officers. The Swarm is one mind, and this is its council.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ New to the Swarm? ⚠️⚠️⚠️

The mod rewrites a lot of Stellaris' core gameplay loop. The PLAYER GUIDE covers Essence, the Evolution Pits, creep, the council, and troubleshooting. It's a lot, but I recommend at least having a look at the "Your first hour on Char" section to get you started off.

130+ custom assets!

• A new species class, hive-minded, with 12 animated portraits: Kerrigan across three forms, her council, Dehaka, Stukov, the Infested and the broods themselves.

• The Evolution tree: 20 strains in three branches replace vanilla bio-ship research. Hulls, growth stages, strike craft, armies and capital ships come from strains you evolve.

• Essence, a new resource harvested from consumed pops and destroyed ships, and ten Evolution Pits where each strain offers two permanent, mutually exclusive mutations. Raptor or Swarmling. Choose, and live with it.

• Every ship and station is a Zerg creature, animated, from actual StarCraft II models.

• Kerrigan as an immortal ruler with four tiers, the Swarm tradition tree, two ascension perks, Creep, Broods, Infestation, Stukov and Dehaka.

• Char as its own planet class, Kerrigan's voice in diplomacy, and a full set of custom icons, event art, city, room, origin card and flag.

The Swarm's entire progression sits in one place: the Evolution category, visible only to the Zerg. Vanilla bio-ship research is hidden for the Swarm; every hull you will ever fly is a strain you evolved. Ground breeds the armies, Sky breeds the fleet, Deep breeds everything else.

Ten strains open an Evolution Pit on Char. Abathur presents two sequences. You pick one. The other is gone for good, unless Dehaka shows you the primal way and you tear the sequence out and start again.

Essence is the one resource the Swarm cannot mine, trade or build. Every population the Swarm purges and every ship it destroys feeds the hive, and the Swarm traditions add a slow trickle on top. It pays for every Evolution Pit, Creep Tumor and Creep Colony, for infesting a world, for Primal Reversion, and for regrowing a brood when a broodmother dies. The Swarm begins with 200 and earns the rest with its teeth. A Swarm that stops eating stops evolving.

Sarah Kerrigan rules the Swarm and does not die. She begins as the Queen of Blades and rises through four tiers: finish the Swarm traditions and the Swarm remembers what it is for; take the Heart of the Swarm perk and it kneels to her; evolve the Behemoth Leviathan and there is nothing left in the Swarm that is not hers. Her portrait changes as she ascends.

Abathur runs the Evolution Pits. Zagara, first among broodmothers, leads the armies. Izsha remembers everything the Swarm has learned. Later, if the Swarm earns them, Stukov and Dehaka.

Every hull is a Zerg creature. Mutalisks for corvettes, growing into Guardians. Vipers for destroyers. Corruptors for cruisers. Brood Lords for battleships. The Leviathan as titan and colossus, a Primal Hive as the juggernaut and the Deep Space Citadel, the Hive itself as every starbase and habitat. Overseers scout, Overlords build and colonise, Overlord Transports carry the broods, Scourge fill the hangar bays, a Lurker guards as the defence platform, a Swarm Host is the ion cannon, and Drones, Infestors and Changelings crew the mining, research and observation stations.

Commanders are broodmothers. On promotion they take a brood: Naktul's for assault, Kilysa's for holding ground, Nafash's for speed, Niadra's for slipping away. One per commander, no exceptions.

Creep Tumors root a world to the Swarm: populations grow faster, hives rise faster, defending broods fight harder, and the living ground soaks up a quarter of any orbital bombardment. Creep Colonies on a starbase push the creep across the whole system, hatching armies faster and knitting damaged stations back together, and every month the creep reaches one system further into Swarm-held space. Take ground and the creep follows. Lose it and the creep burns off.

Infest Population turns every foreign pop on a conquered world into the Infested: hive-minded, tireless, part of the Swarm at last. Infest a human world and Alexei Stukov, killed by Duran, cured by the Protoss, re-infested by Moebius, walks out of the crowd and offers his service.

Once the Swarm has grown its first guardians, and no sooner than the tenth year, Dehaka of Zerus finds you. Hunt with him and the Primal Evolution perk opens: a third, primal option in every Evolution Pit, and Primal Reversion to wipe the pits clean and evolve again.

Every portrait is a rigged cutout with idle animation. All icons, event cards, the city set, room, origin card, tradition art and the Char surface are custom to this mod.

The Swarm is a prescripted empire: pick it from the empire list and play. It is also a species class and shipset for your own designs; the named portraits, events and Evolution tree only go to an empire running the Heart of the Swarm civic.

Requires Utopia and BioGenesis, Stellaris 4.4. English only for now. Achievements disabled, as with any mod that changes game files. Overrides four vanilla files (bio hull sizes and techs, room selector, top-bar resource groups); mods touching those will conflict. Everything else is additive and other bio-ship empires are unaffected.

StarCraft, the Zerg, Kerrigan and all related characters are the property of Blizzard Entertainment. This is a non-commercial fan work.

• Ship models: StarCraft II meshes from Catholomew's Sketchfab collection (CC BY-NC) and the Hive Workshop "Zerg Unit Pack Remastered (Starcraft 2)" by SuPa- and doom_sheep.

• Voice lines: Brood War Kerrigan unit responses, Blizzard Entertainment.

• Everything else, from the portraits and icons to the Evolution tree and the model tools, built for this mod.