Blizzard patches StarCraft II to be a bit more free-to-play

Newsbrief: Blizzard rendered a large swath of StarCraft II content free to play yesterday via a patch that greatly expands the scope of the free, downloadable StarCraft II: Starter Edition. The StarCraft II Patch 2.1 notes detail a host of additions and gameplay tweaks to Blizzard's sci-fi RTS, chief among them being the news that all races, custom games and the entire Starcraft II Arcade are now available to all StarCraft II: Starter Edition players. Given that the Arcade is essentially a curated storehouse of player- and Blizzard-made StarCraft II mods, Patch 2.1 basically makes a ton of user-generated StarCraft II content free to play and will likely cause the StarCraft II modding community to swell significantly. Prior to Patch 2.1, Starter Edition players could only play Blizzard-made mods in the Arcade and were limited to playing as Terran in custom games vs. AI. Players must still log into Battle.net (and remain online at all times) to play the Starter Edition, and you still need to purchase the full game to play the campaign or take part in multiplayer matchmaking.