Genres: Real-Time Strategy, Strategy, Online Multiplayer, Freemium / F2P
Release Date: July 27th, 2010
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Official Website: https://starcraft2.com/
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 14th, 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 accommodate 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.