StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Blizzard Entertainment’s popular real-time strategy game, is going free-to-play later this month on November 14th, the studio announced yesterday. Company CEO Mike Morhaime revealed the news during BlizzCon 2017’s opening ceremony.
“We know ‘free-to-play’ can mean a lot of things for different games,” Blizzard said in a statement on its website, “but we’re here to assure you that when we say that we’re making StarCraft 2 free-to-play, we really mean it.”
While some free-to-play games take a looser approach to the term by making the game free to download but essential content available through microtransactions, Blizzard seems to be avoiding that heavily criticized structure. Starting November 14th, anyone will be able to play the entire Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty campaign at no cost.
Online multiplayer will be accessible free of charge once unlocked, which happens after achieving 10 First Wins of the Day in either unranked or versus modes. Select commanders will also be free. Kerrigan, Raynor, and Artanis will be free indefinitely, and all other commanders are free up to level 5.
If you already own the base game, you will receive StarCraft II‘s second campaign, Heart of the Swarm, at no additional cost. Existing players should log in between November 8th and December 8th to claim the free content. The other single-player campaigns will remain available for individual purchase. Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void, and Nova Covert Ops will cost $14.99 each. Alternatively, you can choose to purchase all three as a $30 bundle.
BlizzCon is an annual convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote its major franchises such as Warcraft, StarCraft, Hearthstone, and Overwatch. We’ll be bringing you more exciting news coming out of BlizzCon this weekend, so check back with A9K soon.
