Blizzard Begins StarCraft II Closed Beta Begins

Gamers who signed up to participate in the StarCraft II beta should keep an eye on their Inboxes.

Blizzard said today that the closed beta for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is officially underway. The company revealed in a press release that "thousands" of gamers will begin to receive their invitations starting today. This will be the first phase of many in the closed beta, so don't panic just yet if your invitation isn't sitting in your Inbox.

"In addition to providing feedback on the multiplayer balance of StarCraft II, testers are also getting a first look at Blizzard Entertainment's revamped Battle.net service, which will be the online platform for StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, and future Blizzard Entertainment games," the company said.

Here are the official beta specs:

PC Minimum Requirements:

Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
2.2 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
1024x768 minimum display resolution
4 GB free hard space (Beta)
Broadband connection

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is currently slated to ship in the first half of 2010.