StarCraft 2 is going free-to-play

[Shawn Knight]

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed during the company’s annual BlizzCon convention on Friday that StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is going free-to-play. From November 14, the Wings of Liberty story campaign will be absolutely free to play. The same is true of versus mode. Commanders Kerrigan, Raynor and Artanis will be completely free as well but all other commanders will only be free up to level five. After that, you’ll have to pay to unlock them.

Those who already own the main game will be gifted the Heart of the Swarm expansion.

Game director Tim Morten said they feel like they’ve got a great game that they want more people to play. He added that taking away some of the barriers – primarily cost – will hopefully give a larger audience the chance to play StarCraft 2.

Morten was quick to address the issue of microtransactions.

"For a lot of people, when they hear 'free-to-play,' they think that means we're introducing a bunch of new microtransactions, secondary currency, and things like that," Morten said. "We're not doing that."

Also coming to StarCraft 2 is a new pair of commanders – Mira Han and Matt Horner – and a new co-op mode map called Part and Parcel.

A remastered version of the original StarCraft launched over the summer for $15.

BlizzCon 2017 runs through November 4 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/71729-starcraft-2-going-free-play-month.html

 

[BSim500]

"Commanders Kerrigan, Raynor and Artanis will be completely free as well but all other commanders will only be free up to level five. After that, you’ll have to pay to unlock them."

"For a lot of people, when they hear 'free-to-play,' they think that means we're introducing a bunch of new microtransactions, secondary currency, and things like that," Morten said. "We're not doing that."

^ The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one...

 

[VitalyT]

Commanders Kerrigan, Raynor and Artanis will be completely free as well but all other commanders will only be free up to level five. After that, you’ll have to pay to unlock them.

If Kerrigan and Raynor knew their freedom would be snatched away after level 5, they'd wish they were dead.

Great writing!

 

[GreenNova343]

"Commanders Kerrigan, Raynor and Artanis will be completely free as well but all other commanders will only be free up to level five. After that, you’ll have to pay to unlock them."

"For a lot of people, when they hear 'free-to-play,' they think that means we're introducing a bunch of new microtransactions, secondary currency, and things like that," Morten said. "We're not doing that."

^ The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one...

Not really. Consider how many possible commanders there are, & that those will be the only micro-transactions...then compare them to other games, like CS:GO, Star Wars Battlefront II, etc., where it seems like everything has an associated micro-transaction.

 

[Kibaruk]

"Commanders Kerrigan, Raynor and Artanis will be completely free as well but all other commanders will only be free up to level five. After that, you’ll have to pay to unlock them."

"For a lot of people, when they hear 'free-to-play,' they think that means we're introducing a bunch of new microtransactions, secondary currency, and things like that," Morten said. "We're not doing that."

^ The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one...

Yeah, you have to pay the full game to play, it's not micro transactions nor anything weird, you want to keep on playing past that level? You get the game. It's not really that hard to get.

 

[fimbles]

Received an email this evening that this is now live.

Wings of liberty campaign
Versus mode
Commanders up to lvl 5