In A World Filled With Cheesy Credits Music, StarCraft II Stands Apart

Last night, after years and years of putting it off, I finally played the final couple of missions in Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. (Yeah, I know. Hey, I like the game and everything, but I got sidetracked!)

It was a kick to finish the story the day before the sequel, Heart of the Swarm, comes out. The saga of Kerrigan and Raynor may have ended on a cliffhanger, but I get to see that cliffhanger resolve (at least somewhat) almost immediately. Maybe that’s why I waited. Yeah, that’s why. Sure.

After completing the game, the credits roll. It starts out playing the game’s winning mix of dramatic orchestration, Firefly-style guitars and dobros, and Top Gun-sounding electric guitar wailing. But then… something happens. A song begins to play.

That song is ‘Terran Up the Night,” a jock-metal anthem by the band Level 800 Tauren Chieftain. Yes. That is the name of the band. Well, sort of. That’s the in-game name of the band, who in the real world are called Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain. Which: Hee. The band is made up of Blizzard employees, and it looks like they’ve gone through enough different names over the years (basically, they keep leveling up) that it’s difficult to really keep up.

In a world where we’ve already had the amazing (and similar) credits music to Aliens: Infestation, it feels like a blessing that we get one more. A tacky, tacky blessing.

https://lastchance.cc/this-amazing-credits-anthem-mostly-plays-at-night-most-5889370%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Here now, the lyrics to ‘Terran Up the Night,” courtesy of The WoW Wiki

“Terran Up the Night”

The smell of rusty metal, dead zerg and napalm,

The sound of friggin’ laser beams and Gatling guns.

Strapped into powered armor,

Got the ladies always looking at me,

They can’t believe the size of my over-engineered codpiece.

Well, I’m a convict

In a siege tank I ride

Not protossin’, not zergin’,

No, I’m terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night! Alright!

Don’t want no shiny protoss flying machines

Rather have a clunky, funky, rusty SCV.

Strap yourselves in girls,

We’re gonna soar across the stars

‘Cause when you’ve got a battlecruiser,

Hell, who needs a car?

Well, I’m a convict

In a siege tank I ride

Not protossin’, not zergin’,

No, I’m terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night! That’s Right!

[Hell yeah]

You come in peace, well I come in war

I’m counting corpses, I ain’t counting score

When the protoss charge and the zerg start to swarm,

Don’t want no Zeus, I want my own Thor!

We’ve got our own transformer,

The rough and tough Viking.

He can fly, and doesn’t cry like that little girl Starscream

Never served the King, no

Never served the Lord

But if we lived in Azeroth, honey

You know we’d join the Horde! Yeah!

Well, I’m a convict

In a siege tank I ride

Not protossin’, not zergin’,

No, I’m terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night! That’s right

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night!

Terran up the night! All night

I’m not super deep in Blizzard culture, so I don’t actually know what the general attitude toward this song is among mega StarCraft fans. Is it gloriously cheesy? Cheesy, yet glorious? Just plain cheesy? Just plain glorious? You tell me.