StarCraft is a real-time strategy video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. The first installment of the video game series of the same name, it was released in 1998. A Classic Mac OS version was released in 1999, and a Nintendo 64 port co-developed with Mass Media and published by Nintendo was released in 2000.

Blizzard started work on the game shortly after Warcraft II, another real-time strategy game, was released in 1995. The first incarnation debuted at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo, where it was unfavorably compared to Warcraft II. As a result, the project was entirely overhauled before being showcased to the public in early 1997, at which time it received a far more positive response. The game's multiplayer is particularly popular in South Korea, where players and teams participate in professional competitions, earn sponsorships, and compete in televised tournaments.

Set in a future timeline during the 25th century AD in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector, the game revolves around three intelligent species fighting for dominance: the Terrans are humans exiled from Earth who are now skilled at adapting to any situation; the Zerg are a race of insectoid aliens in pursuit of genetic perfection and obsessed with assimilating other species; the Protoss are a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities who are attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophy about their way of life from the Zerg.

Many journalists of the video game industry have praised StarCraft as one of the most important and greatest video games of all time. The game is also said to have raised the bar for developing real-time strategy (RTS) games. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide by February 2009, StarCraft became one of the best-selling games for the personal computer. It has been praised for pioneering the use of unique factions in RTS gameplay and for having a compelling story.

StarCraft has had its storyline adapted and expanded through a series of novels published between 2000 and 2016, the expansion pack StarCraft: Brood War, and two officially authorized add-ons, Insurrection and Retribution. A sequel, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, was released in July 2010, along with two expansion packs and a campaign pack between 2013 and 2016, while a remastered edition of the original and its expansion pack was released in August 2017. The original game, along with the expansion, was released for free in April 2017.

Gameplay

Blizzard Entertainment's use of three distinct races in StarCraft is widely credited with revolutionizing the real-time strategy genre. All units are unique to their respective races, and while rough comparisons can be drawn between certain types of units in the technology tree, every unit performs differently and requires different tactics for a player to succeed.

The psionic and technologically adept Protoss have access to powerful units and machinery and advanced technologies such as energy shields and localized warp capabilities, powered by their psionic traits. However, their forces have lengthy and expensive manufacturing processes, encouraging players to follow a strategy of the quality of their units over quantity. The insectoid Zerg possess entirely organic units and structures, which can be produced quickly and at a far cheaper cost to resources, but are accordingly weaker, relying on sheer numbers and speed to overwhelm enemies. The humanoid Terrans provide a middle ground between the other two races, providing units that are versatile and flexible. They have access to a range of more ballistic military technologies and machinery, such as tanks and nuclear weapons.

Although each race is unique in its composition, no race has an innate advantage over the other. Each species is balanced out so that while they have different strengths, powers, and abilities, their overall strength is the same.

StarCraft features artificial intelligence that scales in difficulty, although the player cannot change the difficulty level in the single-player campaigns. Each campaign starts with enemy factions running easy AI modes, scaling through the course of the campaign to the hardest AI modes. In the level editor provided with the game, a designer has access to four levels of AI difficulties: "easy", "medium", "hard", and "insane", each setting differing in the units and technologies allowed to an AI faction and the extent of the AI's tactical and strategic planning. The single-player campaign consists of thirty missions, split into ten for each race.

Resource management Each race relies on two resources to sustain their game economies and to build their forces: minerals and vespene gas. Minerals are needed for all units and structures, and they are obtained by using a worker unit to harvest the resource directly from mineral nodes scattered around the battlefield. Players require vespene gas to construct advanced units and buildings, and they acquire it by constructing a gas extraction building on top of a geyser and using worker units to extract the gas from it. In addition, players need to regulate the supplies for their forces to ensure that they can construct the number of units they need. Although the nature of the supply differs between the races—Terrans use physical supplies held in depots, Protoss use psionic energy channeled from their homeworld via pylons, and Zerg is regulated by the number of controlling overlord units present—the supply mechanic essentially works in exactly the same way for each race (just with differing impacts on gameplay), allowing players to create new units when there are sufficient resources to sustain them.

Base construction Protoss and Zerg building construction is limited to specific locations: Protoss buildings need to be linked to a power grid, while almost every Zerg structure must be placed on a carpet of biomass, called "creep", that is produced by certain structures. Terran buildings are far less limited, with certain primary base structures possessing the ability to take off and fly slowly to a new location. Terran buildings, however, require the worker unit to continue construction on the building until it is completed. Also, once a Terran building has taken a certain amount of damage, it will catch fire and can eventually burn to the ground without further enemy action if repairs are not performed by a worker unit. The Protoss, by contrast, only require a worker unit to begin the process of transporting a building to the theater of operations via warp, and their buildings' shields (but not their structure) are regenerative. The Zerg worker unit physically transforms into the structure created, which is capable of slowly healing itself.

Multiplayer Multiplayer on StarCraft is powered through Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net Internet service. Through this, a maximum of eight players can compete in a variety of game modes, including simply destroying all other players (which may be competitive, as in Ladder play, or non-ranked, as in melee play), to king of the hill and capture the flag objective-based games. In addition, the game incorporates a variety of specialized scenarios for different types of game, such as simulating a football game, using the Terran hoverbike unit to conduct a bike race, or hosting a Zerg hunting competition. StarCraft is also one of the few games that includes a spawn installation, which allows for limited multiplayer. It must be installed from a disc, and requires a product key to work just as the full version does. However, one product key can support up to eight spawned installations with access to Battle.net. Limitations of a spawned installation include the inability to play single-player missions, create multiplayer games, or use the campaign editor. Newer releases of the game available through Battle.net or discs that include the Windows Vista label don't support the spawn installation.

Synopsis

Setting

StarCraft takes place in a science fiction universe created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney for Blizzard Entertainment. According to the story presented in the game's manual, the overpopulation of Earth in the early 24th century has caused the international governing body, known as United Powers League (which was later succeeded by United Earth Directorate), to exile certain members of the human race, such as criminals, the cybernetically enhanced, and genetic mutants, to colonize the far reaches of the galaxy. An attempt to colonize a nearby solar system goes wrong, resulting in humanity's arrival in the Koprulu Sector. In the distant Koprulu Sector of the galaxy, the exiles form several governments, but quickly fall into conflict with each other. One government, the Confederacy of Man, eventually emerges as the strongest faction, but its oppressive nature and brutal methods of suppressing dissidents stir up major rebel opposition in the form of a terrorist group called the Sons of Korhal. Just prior to the beginning of the game, in December 2499, an alien race possessing advanced technology and psionic power, the Protoss, makes first contact with humanity by destroying a Confederate colony world without any prior warning. Soon after this, the Terrans discover that a second alien race, the insectoid Zerg, has been stealthily infesting the surface of several of the Terran colonies, and that the Protoss are destroying the planets to prevent the Zerg from spreading. With the Confederacy threatened by two alien races and internal rebellion, it begins to crumble.

Characters

The player assumes the role of three nameless characters over the course of the game. In the first act, the player acts as the Confederate magistrate of an outlying colony world of Mar Sara, threatened by both the Zerg and the Protoss, and is forced through events to join the rebel Sons of Korhal under its leader Arcturus Mengsk. Mengsk's campaign is accompanied by Jim Raynor, a morally conscious law enforcement officer from Mar Sara, and Sarah Kerrigan, a psychic assassin and Mengsk's second-in-command. The second episode of the game sees the player as a cerebrate, a commander within the Zerg Swarm. The player is ruled over by the Zerg Overmind – the manifestation of the collective consciousness of the Swarm and the game's primary antagonist – and is given advice from other cerebrates of higher rank and status while accomplishing the objectives of the Swarm. In the final part of StarCraft, the player is a newly appointed Executor within the Protoss military reporting to Aldaris, a representative of the Protoss government. Aldaris is at odds with Tassadar – the former occupant of the player's position – over his association with Zeratul, a member of a heretical group known as dark templar.

Story