14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has officially announced that the multiplayer beta stage for its upcoming real time strategy title Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty would end on May 31. The announcement says that the beta stage might come back online for the weeks directly before the actual launch date for the game, which is set for July 27. More details will be offered by Blizzard in the coming weeks.
The developer is saying that it will use the time after the beta is taken down at the end of May to make both hardware and software changes to Battle.net, the service which supports the multiplayer for Starcraft II. Blizzard now has a general idea of the load that its service will have to hold once the full game goes live and will work to make sure that the worldwide launch goes as smoothly as possible on July 27.
A Blizzard community manager has also taken the opportunity to talk directly to those who took part and said “We’d like to thank all of our beta-test participants for your enthusiasm, dedication, and valuable feedback during the beta test, and we look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on the StarCraft II beta test as the game’s July 27 launch approaches”.
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty comes about ten years after the original game in the series and will keep the same general structure while making significant changes to the three sides engaged in intergalactic war and to the underlying game mechanics. The single players will have more than 20 missions and will tell the story of Human resistance fighter Jim Raynor. Two other titles linked to Starcraft II are planned, called Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, the first focusing on the Zerg and the second telling a Protoss story. They will likely arrive about one year and a half apart after the main game.