As promised, Starcraft II is going free-to-play, sort of. Announced back at Blizzcon, the first part of the trilogy of campaigns is now free for everyone to download and play. No need to claim anything, just open the Battle.net client on PC and download Starcraft II.
In case that wasn’t clear, these are some tweets to clear it up:
Number of hours it takes to earn the full StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Campaign: 0
— StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 14, 2017
Number of hours before you can play ANY Co-op Commander in StarCraft II: 0
— StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 14, 2017
Number of pay-to-win mechanics in StarCraft II: 0
Free to Play – Now Live! pic.twitter.com/a02OYUCYZU
— StarCraft (@StarCraft) November 14, 2017
This is obviously a jab on the current controversy at Star Wars Battlefront II’s horrible progression system.
However, as previously mentioned, not all the content from Starcraft II is free. Co-op commanders, including new additions Mira Han and Matt Horner, can level up until level 5. You still need to buy the additional campaigns- unless you have Wings Of Liberty already, which makes you eligible for a free digital copy of Heart Of The Swarm. The multiplayer is all free-to-play, just complete 10 “first wins of the day” and you get to access ranked multiplayer.