Blizzard to make seven-year old StarCraft II 'free-to-play' starting 14 November

Blizzard, the maker of the popular StarCraft franchise, announced that it would make StarCraft II 'free to play' starting 14 November. The studio announced this major development at its 11th annual BlizzCon conference on 3 November 2017 and 4 November 2017.[caption id="attachment_4198223" align="alignleft" width="380"]

StarCraft II poster. Image: Blizzard[/caption]Starcraft II, a military real-time strategy game was launched more than seven years back in 2010 but still enjoys a strong following worldwide including the game's multiplayer community. The free-to-play model here allows players waiting to experience the game, access to the original "Wings of Liberty" single-player campaign as well as earn full access to the popular ranked multiplayer mode.Current StarCraft II players who have already purchased the first installment of the game's single-player campaign will gain free access to its second campaign titled, 'Heart of the Swamp'. However, this access will only be available until 8 December.

As mentioned on the Battle.net blog, Blizzard will also allow users free access to every Co-op Commander up to level five with three Co-op Commander characters including Raynor, Kerrigan and Artanis to be completely free.According to a report by The Verge, this is not the first time that Blizzard has gone on to make an older game 'free-to-play'. Earlier this year, Blizzard declared StarCraft, its 19-year-old original and its expansion 'Brood War' free for downloading from the game's official website.