Irvine Forge of Hits announced the release of an updated version of Starcraft in the summer of 2017. The game will get new graphics and sound. Mechanics and balance will remain the same.
For StarCraft: Remastered, Blizzard artists will redraw the sprites, effects and interfaces of the original game at high resolutions. The novelty will support screens up to 4K. A zoom will appear in the game, StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War briefings will be converted into comics, and the sound will be rewritten and updated.
Gameplay with balance will not be changed. Blizzard insists: former players should get the same experience from playing the remaster as when playing the original.
In StarCraft: Remastered, we are upgrading the visual side of the original game, its audio and online support so that players can enjoy StarCraft for another 20 years and more.
CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment
StarCraft Anthology, which includes the original StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, is promised to be updated this week: the game will receive improved support for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, the ability to reassign keys and so on. Together with the update, the game will be free to download.
The cost of StarCraft: Remastered is promised to be announced closer to the release, which will take place this summer on Windows and Mac.
The first rumors about the appearance of the remaster appeared in the fall of last year. It was expected that the announcement of the remaster will take place at BlizzCon 2016.
StarCraft turns 19 this year. The original was released on Windows in March 1998.
Editor’s note: Blizzard has not previously made such large remasters for its projects (only the release of WarCraft 2 comes to mind now Battle.net Edition). Perhaps this is a kind of recognition of the failure of StarCraft II as an esports discipline (a failure within the company). The second part could not achieve the popularity that the first one had. The company has a desire to secure a loyal fan base, still devoted to the original. Do not write off the fact that Blizzard sees the success of its competitors’ remasters. The HD version of Age Of Empires II on Steam alone boasts an army of 4 million users.
Source: Blizzard