The original StarCraft can be credited with a lot of things. It revolutionized the real time strategy genre… it lead to the birth of esports… it further cemented Blizzard’s status as one of the best developers in the world. This weekend, the developer confirmed plans to re-release the seminal game this Summer in an enhanced and expanded edition known as StarCraft Remastered:
The remastered graphics and audio will bring a modern look and feel to the timeless classic, with widescreen UHD support for up to 4K resolution. Other updates will include new illustrations to enhance storytelling in the StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War campaign missions; advanced matchmaking; full connectivity to Blizzard’s gaming network for social features and updates; cloud saving for campaign progress, custom maps, replays, and keybinds; support for eight new languages in addition to the original five; and more.
While Blizzard is modernizing StarCraft’s presentation, they were also quick to point out to fans that the actual gameplay experience won’t be changing:
While these improvements will bring StarCraft to the modern era, gameplay and balance have been precisely preserved, for an experience that will feel identical to veteran players.
“StarCraft is a pure distillation of Blizzard’s DNA… its story, its balance, and all the little details reflect our long-running commitment to epic entertainment, and it’s been a staple in competitive gaming and esports for almost 20 years,” said Blizzard’s CEO, Mike Morhaime. “With StarCraft Remastered, we’re modernizing the original game’s visuals, audio, and online support to ensure that players can enjoy StarCraft for another 20 years and beyond.”
In addition to announcing StarCraft Remastered, Blizzard also confirmed plans to repackage the original StarCraft, and its Brood War expansion, as the StarCraft Anthology. If you’ve never played StarCraft before, you’ll be interested to learn that this classic collection will be free to download, and it’ll be available sometime next week.
