StarCraft II

StarCraft II

Developers
	Blizzard Entertainment
Release dates
Windows	July 27, 2010
macOS (OS X)	July 27, 2010
Reception
Metacritic	93
IGDB	89
Taxonomy
Monetization	Freeware, Expansion pack
Microtransactions	Cosmetic, Unlock
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Bird's-eye view
Controls	Multiple select, Point and select
Genres	RTS
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Sci-fi, Space
Series	StarCraft

StarCraft
StarCraft	1998
StarCraft II	2010

StarCraft II is a sci-fi RTS game developed by Blizzard Entertainment (specifically, its now-defunct Team 1). It offers both long singleplayer campaigns and a popular multiplayer mode.

The game was initially announced at BlizzCon 2007. The content was split to 3 key parts, each of them having a large campaign for a single faction. The initial release, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (versions 1.x) from July 2010, served as the base game and featured a Terran campaign. A Starter Edition was released as a sort of a limited demo release, with access to unranked multiplayer and the Arcade (in-built distribution system for modified maps), but only a limited set of campaign missions. Heart of the Swarm (versions 2.x) came out in March 2013 featuring the Zerg campaign and new units, as well as the ability to invite one friend to ranked multiplayer for the duration of the respective account connections, the process being called "spawning". Legacy of the Void (versions 3.x) came out in November 2015 with the Protoss campaign and further new units. During 2016, three parts of the mini-campaign Nova Covert Ops were also released. Over time, the game received co-op campaigns with purchasable/unlockable co-commanders, with a small set already unlocked for all players.

On November 14, 2017, the game was updated to version 4.0 with significant changes. The Wings of Liberty content was made free-to-play for all users, replacing the Starter Edition and the spawning concept. The multiplayer lobbies for all expansions were merged into one, with free users still able to access the unranked section thereof. The game's balance was significantly reshuffled, including some units and abilities getting removed, added or replaced in version 4.0 and its subsequent patches. The last major version, 5.0, was released in July 2020.

The game is no longer receiving any new content as of October 2020, with the only updates released since then resolving bugs, minor balance tweaks and map pool rotations to accomodate major multiplayer events.

Unlike prior games made by the company, StarCraft II requires a Battle.net account and an active online connection to run, with singleplayer content being available offline only if the game was authenticated online within 30 days of the attempt to play without an Internet connection.

General information

StarCraft II section on Liquipedia

Official NA forums

Official EU forums

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
Battle.net

All versions require Battle.net DRM, as well as periodic online re-authentication every 30 days.

Monetization

Type	Notes
Expansion pack	Expansion packs come with new campaigns. Before the 2017 content streamlining, they had exclusive units and separate multiplayer lobbies as well.
Free-to-play	As of November 14, 2017, the game is free-to-play with the Wings of Liberty content being available in its entirety, as well as most multiplayer content, access to ranked online play, co-op commanders up to a certain level, and Arcade mode access.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
Cosmetic	Skins for units and UI elements, as well as announcer packs.
Unlock	Most co-op commanders are locked otherwise.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Heart of the Swarm	Formerly standalone. Bundled in the Campaign Collection.
Legacy of the Void	Formerly standalone. Bundled in the Campaign Collection.
Nova Covert Ops Mission pack 1	Bundled in the Nova Covert Ops Bundle.
Nova Covert Ops Mission pack 2	Bundled in the Nova Covert Ops Bundle.
Nova Covert Ops Mission pack 3	Bundled in the Nova Covert Ops Bundle.

Other DLC include individual co-op campaign commanders, skins for units and interface elements, and alternate announcers.

Essential improvements

StarCraft II code is optimized to run in 2 cores. If playing online matches with a CPU with multiples cores, it is recommended to set the core affinity to only 2 cores in the Task Manager.

This fixes performance issues.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts\
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts\
macOS (OS X)	$HOME/Library/Application Support/Blizzard/StarCraft II/Accounts/

Video

Graphics settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen			Locked to 16:9.
4K Ultra HD			May need to change resolution in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\StarCraft II\Variables.txt
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Called "Fullscreen (Windowed)" in-game.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Capped to 60 by default. Framerate cap can be manually set to a value by using the -frameratecap=[number] -frameratecapglue=[number] command line argument. Alternatively, change frameratecap in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts\Variables.txt
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)
Color blind mode		Enable under Options, Gameplay.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		No mouse acceleration.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound		Will use Windows' channel count.
Subtitles		Unit phrases are not included.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Can be enabled or disabled.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				US, EU, and SEA
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Czech				Fan - 1
French
German
Italian
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Slovak				Fan - Wings of Liberty
Spanish
Latin American Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play
Online play		12	Versus, Co-op

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	1119, 6113, 1120, 80, 3724
UDP	1119, 6113, 1120, 80, 3724

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

Devices	State	Notes
Novint Falcon

Issues fixed

Repair tool

In <path-to-game>\Support, the Repair.exe tool exists for repairing file corruption. Use this before reinstallation attempts to save time.

Unable to download game data from Blizzard's servers

Disable firewall or add the installation folder to its whitelist[citation needed]

Trouble installing game

If an error similar to "The file <name of file> could not be written" is shown, follow this guide.

Run as administrator
Right-click the installer and choose Run as administrator (not applicable to Windows XP). Choose the installation options. Once it begins installing, minimize the installer until the installation is completed.

Jumping/jittery/lost mouse cursor (OS X)

There are a ton of threads that boil down to it being a problem with mouse acceleration screwing up when there is a high CPU load. The problem with turning mouse acceleration off is that StarCraft will turn it back on, even if you disable the option for OS mouse control override.

The solution is a program available here. This program turns off mouse acceleration in StarCraft II after the game boots.

Language pack issues

If upon logging into Battle.net, the error dialogue "You need an authorized language pack from Blizzard Entertainment to use this language" appears, use the following instructions to modify variables.txt.

Edit variable.txt file
Go to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\StarCraft II\ Open variables.txt in a text editor and locate the following lines: localeidassets= and localeiddata= In each of those lines, insert the language code after the equals sign from the table below this fixbox. Save the file and start the game to test.

Region	Code
Americas
American English	enUS
Latin American Spanish	esMX
Brazilian Portuguese	ptBR
Europe
German	deDE
European English	enGB
European Spanish	esES
French	frFR
Italian	itIT
Polish	plPL
Portuguese	ptPT
Russian	ruRU
Korea
Korean	koKR
Taiwan
Traditional Chinese	zhTW
Southeast Asia & Australia/New Zealand
Southeast Asia English	enSG

If this does not fix the issue, close the game and create a backup of the variables.txt file before deleting it. Restart the game and attempt to login; this will automatically create a new variables.txt file and often fixe the issue. This will, however, reset any custom settings.

Deletion and re-creation of the variables.txt file should also resolve any issues with Region Limited licenses that have recently upgraded to Region Unlimited licenses.

Steam overlay issues

Using the Steam overlay (when adding the game as a "Non-Steam Game" in the client) may result in in-game commands behaving as waypointed instead of direct (i.e. handled as if the ⇧ Shift key is being held down.

This has been found to be as a result of the default Steam shortcut to enter the overlay (⇧ Shift + Tab ↹), which makes StarCraft II assume the ⇧ Shift key is being held down. When the overlay is exited, the game does not note the lifting of the ⇧ Shift key, and assumes that the ⇧ Shift key is still being held, thus creating this issue.

Change the Steam overlay shortcut

Redirect the Non-Steam Game Overlay to separate executable[citation needed]
Click on "Add a Non-Steam Game" Browse for SC2Switcher.exe in <path-to-game>\Support\. Add selected program Notes The game will require a manual login on every launch.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0c
Metal support

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	FMOD
Cutscenes	Ogg Theora

Mods

StarCraft Mass Recall

StarCraft Mass Recall is a fan remake of the original StarCraft with the Brood War expansion in StarCraft II's engine.

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7, 8, 10	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+	Intel Core i5 series AMD FX series
System memory (RAM)	2 GB	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	30 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Intel HD Graphics 3000 128 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0c compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 AMD Radeon HD 7790 1 GB of VRAM

Support for Windows XP and Vista was dropped some time in 2017. The game will no longer run on these versions after this change.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.11	10.13
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core 2 Duo	Intel Core i5 or better
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	30 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GT 330M ATI Radeon HD 4670	Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M AMD Radeon HD 6970

Originally supported OS X version 10.9.5 as minimum and 10.11 and recommended configurations.