The Protoss are able to produce dark templar units, a powerful cloaked melee unit only given to the player in special missions of StarCraft. Each race is given access to a unique ground unit: the Zerg can create a defensive unit that can attack from the concealment of its burrow, while the Terrans can train combat medics. In addition, the game's artificial intelligence (AI) has been augmented so that AI-controlled players are more intelligent and tend to use tactics more effectively.īrood War introduces seven new units. The single-player campaign has an increased difficulty missions are no longer entirely linear, and a greater focus on strategy is needed to complete missions. These changes make rushing tactics-a factor that gained some criticism in the original StarCraft-less practical. Brood War's gameplay remains fundamentally unchanged from that of StarCraft, although it made small alterations to unit costs and some abilities, and added some new units.
The game revolves around players collecting resources to construct a base, upgrade their militaries, and ultimately conquer opponents. StarCraft focuses around three distinct interstellar species: the psionic Protoss, the adaptable Terrans, and the insectoid Zerg. A remastered edition of StarCraft and its expansion was released on August 14, 2017.
The game is especially popular in South Korea, where professional players and teams have participated in matches, earned sponsorships, and competed in televised matches.Īs of April 19, 2017, StarCraft and its Brood War expansion, aka the Anthology, are free to download and play from Blizzard's website.
As of May 31, 2007, StarCraft and Brood War have sold almost ten million copies combined.
The expansion was released first in the United States on December 18, 1998.īrood War was critically well received, with reviewers praising it for being developed with the care of a full game rather than as an uninspired extra. The campaigns continue the story from where the original StarCraft ended, with the sequel, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, continuing from the conclusion of Brood War. The expansion pack introduces new campaigns, map tilesets, music, extra units for each race, and upgrade advancements.
Released in December 1998 for Microsoft Windows and June 1999 for Mac OS, it was co-developed by Saffire Corporation and Blizzard Entertainment. The free version of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, meanwhile, will be available from November 14th.StarCraft: Brood War is the expansion pack for the military science fiction real-time strategy video game StarCraft. There's another restriction to the free release, too: The game's Co-op Commanders beyond Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis, are free-to-play only through to level five, beyond which players need to stump up cash for one of the game's downloadable content packs.įor those who already own Wings of Liberty, Blizzard is making Heart of the Swarm available free of charge if claimed through the application between November 8th and December 8th. ' With the massive Wings of Liberty single-player campaign, endlessly replayable co-op mode, prestigious ranked ladder, comprehensive map-making tools, and more, StarCraft II now delivers the ultimate real-time strategy experience completely free.'Īstute readers will note that Morhaime's list of features doesn't extend to additional chapters in the title: Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void, and Nova Covert Ops will all be made available as add-on purchases priced $14.99 in the US, or as a Campaign Collection pack at $39.99.
' StarCraft II is one of the highest-rated PC games of all time, and we’re excited to give even more people around the world a chance to find out why it has inspired such a passionate global community,' explains Mike Morhaime, chief executive and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, of his company's decision. Now the company is extending the same offer to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, released in 2010 as the first StarCraft game to feature a 3D game engine. Activision-Blizzard has announced that it is to re-release sci-fi real-time strategy (RTS) StarCraft II as a free-to-play title later this month, following in the footsteps of its predecessor.īlizzard threw a bone to fans of the classic StarCraft, originally released in March 1998, when it announced StarCraft Remastered earlier this year: While the Remastered version would be a paid-for upgrade, the original release - with a few bug-fixes and improvements added - was released as an entirely free-to-play title, along with its Brood War expansion.