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Okay guys hear me out.

I know the Tyranids have been around a lot longer than the entire Starcraft franchise has, including the Zerg. However, look at the 90s Space Marines and today's space marines - they dont look all too different. But look at the 90s Tyranids and today's Tyranids - they're worlds apart. So my question is, did GW look at the Zerg design and use it as inspiration for completely redesigning the Tyranid model range from the early 2000s onwards?

Tyranids were more based on a combination of Xenomorph and insect/dinosaur features, though I've always been a proponent for the idea that the Ravenors may have been based on the Hydralisks. I think the features of modern/90's Tyranids look too different for me to put much stock in the idea that they were ripped off from the Zerg.

Probably a bit, but keep in mind before that there was a large borrowing of HR Giger visualization. GW and Blizzard have borrowed quite liberally from each other, and in fact SC2's creative director for much of its development was Andy Chambers, formerly of GW and author/contributor to many 40k rules.

OP has it nailed. GW lifted the looks of the Hydralisk and at least were 'inspired' by the design of the other Zerg. 2nd edition Nids look much different from the later ones. More Giger-like, but also more tacky. It's no big deal in my book.

SC and 40k are both "big player" sci-fi gaming universes, they are stealing from each other without even noticing, as at the very least the makers of each KNOW of the other.

Its nearly impossible to completely disconnect yourself from other major franchises who share similar themes, because your subconscious is at work telling you how things "should" be when you make your own based on the things you are familiar with.


Should another "big player" energe in the sci-fi zone, you can bet he will have similarities to both 40k and SC, simply because they exist.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Its nearly impossible to completely disconnect yourself from other major franchises who share similar themes, because your subconscious is at work telling you how things "should" be when you make your own based on the things you are familiar with..

Apparently not. GW have stated in a court of law that all of their designs come 100% from their designers' heads, and are not in any way influenced by outside sources.

So clearly any resemblance to some computer game characters is completely coincidental.

No it was the other way around.

Every element of Starcraft zerg can be found on some 2nd edition nid or chaos snake in case of hydralisk or in Aliens and sc in general is a blatant ripoff of 40k. 40k is ofc blatant ripoff as well but from more sources heh, anyway with 3rd edition nids GW just returned the favor. The similarities also comes from the fact that before sc, GW was a bit more conservative about riping off Aliens but after seeing how happy Blizzard was about that, the former went full retarrd and we got unimaginative crap like 3rd edition hive tyrant. 4 and 5 edition nids thankfuly went into their own direction, last wave sadly has some zerg written over them again but hopefuly its one time obligatory ripoff thing.

I just watched Alien from 1979 tonight. I'm pretty sure that's where they originally got the idea for tyranids. That movie definitely predates 40k, the idea is basically the same, and they look just different enough for GW to claim it was all their idea.

They are rather taken from Starship Troopers originaly, Alien was a basis mainly for a genestealer. They got more alienish with 3rd edition when the ribcages become almost identical to Alien ones.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Okay guys hear me out.

I know the Tyranids have been around a lot longer than the entire Starcraft franchise has, including the Zerg. However, look at the 90s Space Marines and today's space marines - they dont look all too different. But look at the 90s Tyranids and today's Tyranids - they're worlds apart. So my question is, did GW look at the Zerg design and use it as inspiration for completely redesigning the Tyranid model range from the early 2000s onwards?

I disagree that Space Marines went unchanged.

In the very words of Jes Goodwin and other lead-designers/artists, Space Marines took on a lot of anime-, manga and comic-book inspirations in the past 10 to 15 years, which clearly weren't there in the 80s and early 90s.

Jes Goodwin wrote:This recent overhaul of the Terminator design brings it into line with progress made in appearance of the Space Marines in general. The suit is now bigger and takes on the “Anime” proportions bestowed on the rest of the range – longer legs, wider shoulders and a bigger chest.

The same, I think applies to Nids. The move away from more organic, Giger-esque round shapes and towards more angular shapes, such as the near ominpresent triangular head, is something you may attribute to Star Craft. Personally, I think it is a more generic comic-book/anime-format popular both in Star Craft and in 40K.

Someone here once described "modern" Tyranid heads (e.g. Warriors, etc.., where there is an equivalent to the old ones, but also things like Trygon, etc..) with "comic-style" drawings you might find, say, in the logo of an american Football or Basketball club, if they use a Shark or something like that as a logo. It's very "cartoony", as are Blizzards' War and Star Craft, obviously, though it is hardly their invention, where the old Tyranids tried to create perhaps more giger-esque/wierd/nightmarish, but in their visual representation more "realistic" (e.g. life action, not cartoon) creatures.


It reflects modern youth aesthetics better. Also, for much the same reasons it was first used in comics and anime, it exaggerates proportions and creates false impressions of depth and vanishing points on flat, mostly two-dimensional drawings without much shading (anime) or much-smaller-then-life miniatures (or small digital beasts watched from a top-down view, as in the original Star Craft and War Craft, as opposed to, say, a first person shooter perspective).

The concept is older than Starship Troopers and Aliens. It comes from the base human psyche Id, Ego and Super Ego which basically means Primal Self, Self, Super Self. You will see it in a lot of genres eg. Zombies/Werewolves = Id vs Humans = Ego vs Vampires = Super Ego.

Starship Troopers = Bugs vs Humans vs Skinnies (Book only)
AvP = Alien vs Human vs Predator
Starcraft = Zerg vs Terran vs Protoss
Warhammer 40k Orks/Chaos/Tyranids vs Humans vs Eldar/Tau/Necrons
Halo = Flood vs Humans vs Covenant

@op Yeah I kinda agree but I do believe Blizzard and GWS had some sort of deal back in the 90s where they were going to co-develop an RTS (Starcraft) but the deal fell through. I believe a lot of the designs would have come from the processes of that game

Nah I don't think GW copied SC. The Tyranids had a lot more variety in their designs in 2nd edition and the Zerg can be seen in different elements of 2nd edition Tyranids. 3rd edition mostly just standardised the Tyranid visual which made the army as a whole look more similar to the Zerg,

Influenced at some parts (same with Alien and Starship Troopers) but not really ripped off, in the same way that most everything is inspired by something else.

StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

So yes, the Zerg are Tyranids, modified enough to bypass IP protection.

40k was originally a Sci-Fi version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles was originally a Lord of the Rings table top miniatures game.

There are no new ideas, only re-imaging of old ideas.

SJ

I thought 40K was a Sci-Fi version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles not D&D.

Davor wrote:
I thought 40K was a Sci-Fi version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles not D&D.

yes.

Except neither was a "wargame" in the sense it is often perceived these days.

Both games were (and once again are? becoming?) more similar to older D&D Chainmail style games, very narrative, back in the day even with a Game Master, often as not, rather than "competitive" 2-player "games" played to win, rather than tell a story (though the former was a vision of the game GW itself was pushing since late 2nd, at the very least since 3rd Edition, and the return to "narrative" these days likely has less noble reasons than nostalgia).

Hell, the White Dwarf used to feature D&D quite heavily.

Other way around mate, SC ripped off nids.

SC was originally a game for 40k but from what i understand the project got scrapped, so they took what they had of the game, changed it up, and made SC and went with blizzard.

I'd say Starcraft took inspiration from the same sources 40k took from and took a bit of a sneak at 40k for inspiration. 40k has done the same.

I also don't know why the 'Warcraft was originally a Warhammer Fantasy game and Starcraft was as well!' keep popping up. Warhammer wasn't as big when Warcraft was released and Starcraft was originally a lot more Warcraft in space from early versions of it.

Both have borrowed so heavily from pre existing tropes and themes as to make any such comparison useless.

 Vaktathi wrote:
GW and Blizzard have borrowed quite liberally from each other, and in fact SC2's creative director for much of its development was Andy Chambers, formerly of GW and author/contributor to many 40k rules.

Which is why SC2's "main" villain is basically The Deceiver.

The starcraft was going to be a 40k game myth isn't true. StarCraft was going to be a star wars game but the deal fell through.

People borrow inspiration from many sources. You also have people that worked at gw go work at blizzard entertainment. Your bound to see many things being similar between the two.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

Do you have a source for any of that? GW did pay Milton Bradley to create the HeroQuest and Space Crusade boardgames in order to break into highstreet stores, but that also had the effect of getting the GW brand onto computers with the computer games of said boardgames, so why would GW pay for a computer game to be created?

The only reliable source I can find is this, in which one of the original developers states there was no license.

http://kotaku.com/5929161/how-warcraft-was-almost-a-warhammer-game-and-how-that-saved-wow

Because terran/protos/zerg weren't a complete and direct rip-off of SM/Eldar/Tyranids.

SM/Terran. Look at the designs of the basic troops.
Eldar/protos. Advanced ancient race who view humans as inferior and would rather destroy worlds of humanity if it saved eldar/protos lives. They even have the dark versions of themselves.
Tyranid/zerg. Well... you've already identified that.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

Only WHFB RTS game I'm aware of is Shadow of the Horned Rat. Warcraft was nothing like WHFB... Sides, your story is basically the same one people tell about Starcraft, that it was a licensed game and so on. But even the SC Alpha looked dramatically different (and purple) from 40k. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I doubt it.


With regards to the 'everything that was in SC was already in 2nd ed Nids' ... There's artwork and models of the nids from those days out there on the web. And the design of the 3rd ed and later nids and and the SC units, it's all documented. Look it up, make up your own mind. No point in shouting down each other down. Do agree with you on the 'chaos snake' which is probably a Fiend of Slaanesh. it looks rather Zergy. But in general, Zerg had a insectoid look about them that Nids up to that point lacked. they were just hideous things with claws and AKs that shot worms.

Dont forget Dark Omen - was 10 times better than SotHR ;-)!

If nids still had 5th/6th ed models I'd probably start with them again.. The new models are gak imo.

 Zande4 wrote:
The concept is older than Starship Troopers and Aliens. It comes from the base human psyche Id, Ego and Super Ego which basically means Primal Self, Self, Super Self. You will see it in a lot of genres eg. Zombies/Werewolves = Id vs Humans = Ego vs Vampires = Super Ego.

Starship Troopers = Bugs vs Humans vs Skinnies (Book only)
AvP = Alien vs Human vs Predator
Starcraft = Zerg vs Terran vs Protoss
Warhammer 40k Orks/Chaos/Tyranids vs Humans vs Eldar/Tau/Necrons
Halo = Flood vs Humans vs Covenant

@op Yeah I kinda agree but I do believe Blizzard and GWS had some sort of deal back in the 90s where they were going to co-develop an RTS (Starcraft) but the deal fell through. I believe a lot of the designs would have come from the processes of that game

Eh... that doesn't applies in Halo.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

So yes, the Zerg are Tyranids, modified enough to bypass IP protection.

40k was originally a Sci-Fi version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles was originally a Lord of the Rings table top miniatures game.

There are no new ideas, only re-imaging of old ideas.

SJ

there was no deal and no lisence, Blizzard attempted to negotiate a lisencing deal, and when GW said "no" changed things "just eneugh" I'd call working on making a video game before you have the lisence just a little arrogant

BrianDavion wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

So yes, the Zerg are Tyranids, modified enough to bypass IP protection.

40k was originally a Sci-Fi version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles was originally a Lord of the Rings table top miniatures game.

There are no new ideas, only re-imaging of old ideas.

SJ

there was no deal and no lisence, Blizzard attempted to negotiate a lisencing deal, and when GW said "no" changed things "just eneugh" I'd call working on making a video game before you have the lisence just a little arrogant

No one works on a project before there is a license, except for a teaser cute screen to show as an appetizer to gain backing. No one goes 80% into a finished product without a contract. It's ignorant to assume otherwise.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
StarCraft is a direct ripoff of 40k by Blizzard as a way of flipping off GW for attempting to financially destroy Blizzard over the original Warhammer Fantasy Battles RTS. GW contracted Blizzard to make a licensed WHFB RTS, and pulled out of the project at about 80% completion, stiffing Blizzard on payments. Blizzard completed the project as WarCraft, was sued by GW for theft of IP, GW lost yet cost Blizzard millions in legal fees. Blizzard created StarCraft in retaliation, while making billions off the WarCraft franchise.

So yes, the Zerg are Tyranids, modified enough to bypass IP protection.

40k was originally a Sci-Fi version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles was originally a Lord of the Rings table top miniatures game.

There are no new ideas, only re-imaging of old ideas.

SJ

there was no deal and no lisence, Blizzard attempted to negotiate a lisencing deal, and when GW said "no" changed things "just eneugh" I'd call working on making a video game before you have the lisence just a little arrogant

No one works on a project before there is a license, except for a teaser cute screen to show as an appetizer to gain backing. No one goes 80% into a finished product without a contract. It's ignorant to assume otherwise.

SJ

I'm just going on what has apparently been said.