Blizzard celebrates 20th anniversary of StarCraft with free in-game extras

StarCraft turned 20 on Saturday. Publisher Blizzard is celebrating the anniversary of the game classic with free content in several of its existing games. For example, players of StarCraft: Remastered will receive a skin to celebrate the birthday.

The first entry in the StarCraft series was released on March 31, 1998, and became a huge success for Blizzard, especially in South Korea, where the game is still played. Later in 1998, two more expansion packs were released, called Insurrection and Brood War. The real-time strategy game also got a sequel with StarCraft 2 that has been in development for years, and was released in 2010.

In honor of StarCraft’s release two decades ago, Blizzard has released additional, free content for several of its games, albeit mainly for cosmetic elements. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Diablo 3, Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft 2, among others, will receive things such as new skins or an extra pet. Players just need to log in at the right time: Polygon has made a list of when players need to log in to get the extra content.

Blizzard released a new version of the original StarCraft game last year. With this, the publisher wanted to offer a variant with polished graphics, improved audio and more functionality for online access. The Remastered version is compatible with the original game, allowing players to compete against each other. Anyone who has the Remastered version and logs in after March 6 will receive a special skin to celebrate StarCraft’s birthday.