StarCraft Remastered Announced

Published: March 26, 2017 8:00 AM /

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StarCraft Remastered logo

Originally released in 1998, StarCraft received wide acclaim and was the best selling PC game of the year. Since that time StarCraft has remained one of the most popular online games in the world, and tournaments for the original are still held regularly today. Blizzard has just announced that StarCraft will be getting a facelift with an HD remaster, as well as some other new features. StarCraft Remastered includes both the original game and its expansion, Brood War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ypU9j4w3_w

Most important to some, StarCraft: Remastered will have the entire campaigns of the original and Brood War, LAN capabilities, and online play. All of that will be supported and people will be able to get into it when it releases.

The gameplay remains unchanged, but the presentation has been greatly improved. Units, buildings, textures, etc have all been upgraded, including of course new resolutions that will be supported and more. The audio of course got some attention too, as the soundtrack and dialogue has all been re-recorded.

To up the style a little more, StarCraft Remastered will have some interludes in the form of comic books for each of the races. How those play into the story or what their place is with the cutscenes has yet to be seen. The cutscenes themselves will be seeing a 1080p upgrade as well.

And of course StarCraft Remastered will be getting all the online connectivity support of the other Blizzard games through Battle.net (now just Blizzard).  That includes a matchmaking system, chat rooms, friends support, cloud saves, etc. All the things you would expect in a new Blizzard game.

In addition to the new StarCraft Remastered, StarCraft: Brood War will be getting an update at the end of this month, 1.18. 1.18 will make the original and Brood War completely free to anyone. StarCraft Remastered will not be free; however, the original game and Remastered will feature multiplayer support, meaning those with the original and those with Remastered can still play together.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Classic Games senior producer Pete Stilwell said:

Now that StarCraft: Remastered is announced, we want to think about classic Blizzard games as a service, and to that end we’re primarily focused on StarCraft for now. We don’t have announcements to make about other classic games at this time.
Stilwell also mentioned that StarCraft Remastered was their love letter to the StarCraft community, who has kept the gaming going for all these years and helped shaped its legacy within gaming. Over the course of creating Remastered, the team at Blizzard connected to many people across the globe to get more insight into the game so they could make what Stilwell called a "love letter" to those fans.

Check out the StarCraft site where there is specific information about the original game, as well as some picture sliders where you can compare Remastered to the original's graphics for each race. StarCraft Remastered releases sometimes this summer.


Quick Take

Rumors of this have been circulating for a while and I didn't believe them as this seemed a little outside of Blizzard's style. However, I know a lot of fans will like seeing StarCraft get a remaster. The only sticking point I foresee is the re-recorded audio. A lot of fans like the original sound of the dialogue. 

Also, I now have a little hope for some Warcraft III Remastered.

What do you think of StarCraft Remastered? Do you like the updated look? What do you think about the future of other Blizzard classics seeing some attention?

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Andrew Otton
| Editor in Chief

Andrew is the Editor in Chief at TechRaptor. Conned into a love of gaming by Nintendo at a young age, Andrew has been chasing the dragon spawned by Super… More about Andrew