The Blizzard Arcade will arrive alongside the release of the StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard have just announced at a Blizzcon panel. The Arcade will act as a hub for user-made mods and games created using StarCraft 2's extensive mod tools. The Arcade will be available to everyone who owns StarCraft 2, not just Heart of the Swarm players.
Games available in the Blizzard Arcade will be free to begin with, but Blizzard plan to let mod makers charge for their games in future. The Arcade will be available from the front page, and take players to a central screen showing the most popular mods of the moment. A five star rating system and user reviews will help the best games rise to the top, and "what's hot" sections will give players quick access to the most popular games on the service. The mods will use StarCraft 2's matchmaking system to put players together.
The editor will also be improved, with debugging improvements, a cutscene editor, and custom UI editing tools.
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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
