Game

StarCraft

1998 · PC (Microsoft Windows) · Mac · Real Time Strategy (RTS) · Strategy

88IGDB player score
1,266 ratings

Previously Take

An 88 average from 1,266 ratings: not perfect, but the kind of game people keep recommending anyway. Slow-burn strategy, from Blizzard: science fiction, warfare, tough calls, and the sweet pain of one more turn. Come for the campaign, stay because your friends won't let you leave the lobby. A 1998 original that still holds up — they don't make them like this anymore, literally.

About this game

StarCraft is a real-time strategy game set in a distant sector of the Milky Way galaxy in the 26th century. Players command one of three species across separate campaigns: the Terrans, resourceful human colonists cut off from Earth; the Zerg, an insectoid swarm that assimilates other species; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced race with powerful psionic abilities. Each species features distinct units, structures, and strategic options. The game includes a story-driven single-player campaign for each faction and competitive multiplayer via Battle.net.

In the distant Koprulu Sector of the galaxy, human colonists known as the Terrans have established competing governments far from Earth after their colony ships went off course centuries earlier. Two alien species also inhabit the sector: the Zerg, a ravenous insectoid swarm driven to assimilate other organisms for genetic perfection, and the Protoss, an ancient and powerful race that has secretly observed the Terrans for years. When the Zerg begin targeting Terran worlds to absorb their psionic potential, the Protoss respond by destroying infested colonies to prevent the swarm's spread, plunging all three factions into open conflict. As the Terran Confederacy crumbles under attacks from rebels, Zerg, and Protoss alike, a new authoritarian government rises from the chaos while the Zerg Overmind sets its sights on the Protoss homeworld, seeking to assimilate the one species that could grant it genetic perfection.