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Blizzard Opens Up Its Arcade And Editing Tools To Everyone For Free
The latest StarCraft II update, patch version 2.1, opens up Blizzard's modding and development community in a grandiose way.
According to Blizzard, "Patch 2.1 will help open up the StarCraft II community to a broader set of players, offering a plethora of playable Arcade games the community loves, completely FREE!" You can check out the full list of patch notes below, as well as a video detailing the developments related to freeing up the Arcade and Blizzard's assorted editing tools.
- Play more for free!
- The Arcade is now open for all players
- Custom games unlocked
- Any map, custom team games, 1v1 custom, vs. AI
- All three races now unlocked
- Clan and Group Improvements
- More leveling awards and XP bonuses
- Classic StarCraft Soundtrack
- Extension Mods - Extension Mods will allow you to easily apply the parameters of the mods you develop to any map without having to recreate them every time you want to see how they play on a new map.
- Warcraft III Orc Heroes – Now available for map developers in the StarCraft II Editor
Blizzard has more videos detailing the how patch 2.1 changes StarCraft II, a rundown of StarCraft II's newly opened art tools, and a video detailing the Arcade (featuring Kevin from the Snowflake video before he shaved) on Blizzard's StarCraft YouTube page.
Our Take
Blizzard has always been a developer that heavily rewards its mod community, and the mod community has always returned the favor with amazing changes and mods to Blizzard's games that in some cases (as mentioned in the Snowflake video above) have lead to entirely new highly successful genres. Expanding its tools and its Arcade even further will do nothing but help to further the art of game modding and amateur development.
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