28 August 2018
TL; DR
Starting November 14 2017, you will be able to take part in the first campaign (Wings of Liberty) in a single StarCraft II game and, with very little effort, get access to the network battles of one of the most popular real time strategies for free.
BlizzCon has already taught fans of Blizzard products that, at least once a year, in late autumn, they are pleased with some surprise. This year was no exception — yesterday, November 3, 2017, Michael Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, announced that since November 14, Starcraft II is goes to the free-to-play model.
The new free version of the game will include "Wings of Liberty" — the first part of the trilogy and, attention... — the network mode, which will be unlocked after "10 wins a day" over AI or in unranked games. This condition is a kind of barrier, i.e. to get full access to the multiplayer game, you need to win 10 games against AI or other players in unranked matches during the day.
For those users who already have a "Wings of Liberty" in their Battle.net account, Blizzard will present the second part of the trilogy, the zerg' campaign — "Heart of the Swarm". To receive this gift, you just need to login to your account from November 8 to December 8 2017.
For real fans who have already purchased all three parts of the game, there are no significant bonuses. Unless you are a fan of co-op mode. All existing and future commanders in co-op will be free up to level five. In addition, the level restriction for weekly mutations has been gone. The commanders Artanis, Raynor and "Queen of Blades" Kerrigan will be absolutely free, and for users who bought any part of SC2 before October 31 2017, after November 14, three portraits and the "Eidolon Ghost" skin will be opened.
Total: Blizzard finally decided on this step (free-to-play) and now it will be very interesting to watch how it will affect the popularity of the game. The main problem of the StarCraft was a rather high entry threshold, which, in conjunction with the paid model, made Starcraft as the "game for the fans". With this new model, "new blood" will enter the game, but, IMO, without major "non-Korean" tournaments, the game can remain a cybersport subject in only one country, YKWIM.