BlizzCon 2018: Things to look forward to in Starcraft II

A lot of the attention surrounding this year’s BlizzCon was naturally focused on major announcements such as Diablo Immortal and Hearthstone’s Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion. However, a little time was set aside for StarCraft II as well, specifically during the ‘StarCraft II: What’s Next’ panel.

StarCraft II might not be as hot as World of Warcraft or Overwatch right now, but during the What’s Next panel Blizzard made sure to let fans know it hasn’t forgotten about the venerable RTS title. In fact, StarCraft II fans have a number of exciting new additions to look forward to in 2019, including a new in-game War Chest, a new Co-op commander, Twitch spectator rewards, and more.

Blizzard is working hard on a fourth in-game War Chest for StarCraft II which includes a collection of new player portraits, unit skins, sprays, emotes, and banners. For the first time ever, players will also get to earn a brand new cosmetic item type: building skins. These skins allow a player to change the look of all the buildings for their chosen faction. Some example building skins include a sleek ‘Special Forces’ look for Terran, a glowing red ‘Forged’ makeover for Protoss, and a cybernetic ‘Simulant’ alternative for Zerg.

These new War Chest items will be earnable through gameplay, but they’ll also be available through the Twitch streaming platform. Players who spectate official StarCraft II e-sports matches using a Twitch account that’s linked to their Battle.net account can earn War Chest items just for watching. Blizzard hasn’t yet outlined exactly how this system will work but it says more details should be coming soon.