OpenHV is a small, free, community-built sci-fi RTS on the OpenRA engine, casual and approachable. StarCraft is the genre's most competitively significant game, with build-order and micromanagement depth that supported one of the largest esports scenes in gaming history. Both are free — the difference is scale and competitive depth.
Both are sci-fi real-time strategy games, but OpenHV is a small, free, community-built indie RTS on the OpenRA engine, while StarCraft is the genre's most competitively significant entry with decades of esports history behind it.
| OpenHV | StarCraft | |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | Small indie community project | Genre-defining, one of the biggest esports scenes ever |
| Download size | ~150 MB | ~8 GB |
| Factions | Original factions built for the engine | Three deeply asymmetric, iconic races |
| Competitive depth | Casual, community-focused | Extremely deep — build orders, micro, macro |
| Price | Completely free | Free (Remastered edition free-to-play) |
| Community size | Small, growing | Large, still active decades later |
You want a small, free, community-made sci-fi RTS with a lighter time investment.
You want the deepest, most competitively refined RTS ever made, still actively played today.
OpenHV clears the PlayBound Bar: an original, completely free and open-source real-time strategy game built on the battle-tested OpenRA engine, delivering tight tactical base-building, crisp 90s pixel art, and balanced multiplayer combat.
StarCraft is still one of the easiest games for us to recommend because it doesn't need nostalgia to justify itself. The campaigns remain excellent, the factions are radically distinct, and the original Brood War multiplayer foundation helped define competitive strategy games. Best of all, Blizzard made the original game and Brood War free, making this a piece of PC history that costs nothing to revisit.
OpenHV is a small, free, community-built sci-fi RTS on the OpenRA engine, casual and approachable. StarCraft is the genre's most competitively significant game, with build-order and micromanagement depth that supported one of the largest esports scenes in gaming history. Both are free — the difference is scale and competitive depth.
You want a small, free, community-made sci-fi RTS with a lighter time investment.
You want the deepest, most competitively refined RTS ever made, still actively played today.
Yes. OpenHV is released under GPL-3.0 and StarCraft under Free (StarCraft Anthology) · Remastered sold separately. Both are entirely free with no trials, paid tiers or in-game purchases.