In an incredible piece of StarCraft-ception, some dedicated fans of the space game have remade the first in its own sequel. StarCraft: Mass Recall is a fully playable recreation of StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, in StarCraft 2, and you can play it all for free.
Version 8.0 of the project was released this week, as posted on SC2 Mapster by one of the project leads, karlprojektorinski, containing 59 maps from Brood War, three that were removed in some way, and another six that came in a 1998 demo. According to a long-running thread on the Team Liquid forums, all the progression and dialogue from the original StarCraft has been carried over and preserved, but the difficulty curves have been altered to feel more like the modern strategy game experience.
In addition to the core Mass Recall mod, you can download Enslavers Redux, made by modder OmegaWeaponX. Across four episodes, and nine maps, Redux builds on the Enslavers campaign for StarCraft, and has new missions, enhanced heroes, and goes deeper into the story that leads up to StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. You can find complete instructions, including troubleshooting, on the SC 2 mapster page. These mods are all compatible with any version of StarCraft 2, including the free Starter Edition.
Here’s a peek at the previous 7.0 version in a trailer for the project, posted last year:
This is the third redux of StarCraft we’ve seen. In 2017, Blizzard released Starcraft: Remastered, and in 2019, StarCraft: Cartooned, which overhauled the visuals to be like a Saturday morning cartoon, in collaboration with Carbot Animations.
Blizzard has said it’s slowing development on StarCraft 2 to make way for the next chapter of the series. We chatted to the company earlier this year about the pivotal release turning 10, and all the trials and tribulations therein.