Today Blizzard Entertainment announced that it will be making its real-time strategy game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty freely available to download and play on November 14th
This has the potential to rejuvenate the StarCraft II community, especially those who still play the game’s multiplayer component, as anyone who downloads Wings of Liberty as a free game will have full access to up-to-date versions of StarCraft II ranked multiplayer and its co-op mode.
It may also help juice sales for Blizzard, since StarCraft II spans three core installments (Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, and Legacy of the Void) and last year’s Nova Covert Ops mission packs. While Wings of Liberty will go free on the 14th, players will still have to pay to access the other installments.
However, people who already own Wings of Liberty will be able to download Heart of the Swarm for free for a limited time (between November 8th and December 8th, specifically), and all StarCraft II owners will get a smattering of cosmetic DLC come the 14th.
StarCraft II will be joining its predecessor amid the ranks of games Blizzard offers for free, including the F2P digital card game Hearthstone, which has proven incredibly successful since its debut in 2014.