Original Starcraft Now Free, Patched Up and Good to Go

Blizzard have patched the original Starcraft for the first time in almost a decade, and they’ve made it completely free. They’re giving the old game away, while working on a remaster that’s going to be sold instead. The patch makes some quality of life improvements, making it more playable on modern systems.

You can download the installer from the official site (it isn’t available through the Battle.net client). The whole game weighs around 1.5 GB. You may have to run the installer as an administrator, especially if you have saves you want to transfer over. Best of all? The old version and the remaster will be compatible in multiplayer, allowing everyone to play together.

The improvements might not be substantial, but they’re great to have, especially after all these years. Here are the full 1.18 patch notes:

• Added windowed fullscreen or windowed mode; use Alt+Enter to switch between.
• Added UTF-8 support.
• Added cursor clamping in-game while windowed; unclamped in menus.
• Added Popular Maps to streamline finding games or game types.
• Added options to display actions per minute.
• Added Observer mode.
• Added opponent information when joining a game lobby.
• Added autosaving for replays.
• Added an option to display the game timer.
• Added UPnP support.
• Updated to a new OpenGL backend.
• Improved gameplay responsiveness during multiplayer by increasing turn rate to match LAN speeds over Battle.net.
• Improved UI layout in Battle.net sections.
• Improved behavior of available lobbies within the ‘Join Game’ section.
• Improved compatibility with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10.
• Improved anticheat capabilities.
• Improved installation and patching performance.
• Mac Beta support now available for 10.11 and up.

• Fixed palette issues to correct rainbow water, 80s Kerrigan face in the loading screen, and other graphic glitches.
• Fixed problems with LAN game discovery.
• Fixed IME support and other text artifacts in Battle.net menus.
• LAN and Legacy Battle.net fixes.

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