The popular RTS game StarCraft and its expansion pack StarCraft: Brood War are now available free of charge. The game also received the first patch in eight years.

It has been over eight years since the game received a patch. The new 1.18 update includes several tweaks and fixes, such as the addition of fullscreen and windowed settings, UTF-8 character encoding support, cursor clamping, a new Observer mode, UPnP support and several user interface tweaks.

The patch also features a wide variety of improvements that touch on many parts of the original game, including OpenGL, LAN multiplayer, multiplayer lobbies, anti-cheat systems and OS compatibility.

Last month Blizzard announced that it is working on a remastered edition of StarCraft. The remastered edition will feature the exact same gameplay mechanics as the original version along with various technical enhancements, such as 4K resolution support, updated graphics, updated audio and updated multiplayer capabilities.

With the new multiplayer component players will be able to play against opponents regardless of which version of the game they are playing, effectively making both versions of the game completely compatible with each other.

The remastered edition of StarCraft is expected to launch this summer. The original game can be downloaded for PC and Mac.