March marks the twentieth anniversary of the StarCraft franchise. That’s two decades of gathering minerals and constructing additional pylons. Starting today, players can get special StarCraft loot in their Blizzard games. Logging into Overwatch will give you a nifty Ghost skin for Widowmaker. Pop into Diablo III to get a miniature battlecruiser pet. StarCraft II players can get a bunch of skins, a special portrait, and a decal. Old school fans of StarCraft Remastered can get an anniversary user interface skin. Later in the month, playing Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, or Heroes of the Storm will give you celebratory prizes as well. It’s like finding a free cache of vespene gas or an unguarded expansion location.
Thanks to the release of StarCraft: Remastered we can now zoom in and see all the fine detail we lost in the original game’s pixelated resolution. The game’s high-definition 2D graphics were made with the guidance of the original artists, who revealed the horrifying truth behind the 1998 designs. Look closely at the center of the anti-air missile turret. Every time you built a wall of missile turrets to protect your Terran outpost from a rampaging horde of Zerg Mutalisks, you were ordering brave men to their deaths. There was a little guy manning each tower, ready to give his life for your base.
Imagine you’re a candidate campaigning to be the next president of South Korea. You’d know that eSports is kind of a big deal there, and you might think getting your name out in front of gamers is a good way to scoop up the coveted youth vote. The kids love StarCraft, and everyone likes free stuff, so why not use that to your advantage? Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea has published two free multiplayer maps for Blizzard’s 1998 real-time strategy game. The maps are meant to remind South Korean gamers to cast their votes for Moon Jae-in on May 9th for the presidential election.
Nice timing, Moon Jae-in! StarCraft just became completely free-to-own with the latest patch. It’s political synergy!
