StarCraft (Demo Version)

Following the tradition established with the demo version of Warcraft II, Blizzard released a demo version of StarCraft with a unique short campaign called Loomings, which serves as a prequel to the story in the retail game. In the demo, the player takes the role of a Confederate Alpha Squadron Lieutenant who had just arrived to the fringe colony of Chau Sara. The local Magistrate asks for help dealing with a cell of Sons of Korhal rebels who have rooted themselves in the colony, but the situation soon goes out of control as previously unknown alien life forms suddenly attack Confederate forces. A mysterious Confederate black ops unit called the Cerberus Recon Squad arrives to contain the spread of the "xenomorphs", and their Commander asserts himself as the man in charge, much to the displeasure of the Magistrate. Together with the player they must fend off the Zerg invasion of the colony.

The demo was released as an Internet download and as a shareware CD, with the former having less content due to download size restrictions. The short version of the campaign includes a tutorial and three missions, while two more missions are found in the CD version. Additionally, the number of unit quotes had been reduced in the downloadable demo, and the full intro movie could not have been possibly included with it.