Blizzard announced the legendary game StarCraft will get a 4K remaster this summer

StarCraft is one of the world's most iconic video games. It was critical in establishing e-sports' viability as its tournaments drew crowds of thousands. It was revolutionary for its time. 

And now it's being remade. Blizzard announced late Saturday that Starcraft: Remastered is expected to arrive for Windows PC and Mac this summer. The game will update the 1998 classic with 4K graphics and other technical updates, but will keep the classic gameplay intact. It will include both the base game and the popular expansion Starcraft: Brood War. 

Here's a look at how far the game has come since 1998.

In addition to the remake, Blizzard will make the original game, packaged as StarCraft Anthology, free to download and play. A price was not announced for the remastered version.

The remaster has been long rumored. StarCraft has retained a rabid player bases even after the sequel, StarCraft II, arrived in 2010. Many fans claim the original has superior multiplayer gameplay and that some efforts to modernize the sequel stripped it of complexity. 

Even so, the sequel can still draw a crowd for a major tournament.

What even is this game?

StarCraft II is a real-time strategy (RTS) game. Players harvest resources to build armies to destroy the enemy base. The game's complexity lies in the variety of units available, from slow hulking tanks to scrawny but fierce bestial warriors, and the sheer speed needed to do this successfully. Professional players regularly register more than 300 in-game actions per minute, with timings of certain actions memorized down to the second. 

Sean "day9" Plott, a longtime StarCraft pro and streamer, was particularly ecstatic.

Some fans were snarky after the perceived failure of StarCraft II.