Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War, are set to be remastered for new and old players alike, with Blizzard aiming to release the newly revamped strategy experiences this summer. Initially hitting the rumor mill in mid-2016, this news has now been officially confirmed, with Blizzard planning updated graphics, cinematics, audio and more in the rerelease.
For starters, the game is being made capable of up to 4K resolution, which means much crisper visuals all round. Cinematics will be updated to 1080P, so should look a lot better too - though without remaking them, that might be the limit of their detail (thanks PCG).
None of this will affect the gameplay though, we're told. People still enjoy Starcraft around the world, especially in South Korea, so Blizzard is keen to see the traditional gameplay of both Starcraft and Brood war remain.
However one area where it will see improvement is in its connectivity. The remastered Starcraft will see itself connected to Blizzard's contemporary networking system, now called Blizzard, with all of its modern Battle.net features. That means better matchmaking, a new chat system, friends lists, streaming from in-game and cloud saves for those playing single player.
Blizzard is making the whole thing backwards compatible with the original version though. That is, saves and replays from the classic Starcraft will still work on the remastered version. It also means that classic players will be able to play head to head with the remastered ones too.
To that end, Blizzard will also be releasing the original Starcraft and Brood War for free, alongside the remastered version, which means that anyone can join in and then upgrade as and when they want.
Expect Starcraft remastered to land this summer.