When joining a lobby with a friend, the game will set itself to that of the player with the most StarCraft II content. If a Starter Edition player--Blizzard's free-to-play version of StarCraft II--joins a friend who only owns Wings of Liberty, for instance, then the two players will play at the latter level, but if the group is joined by somebody who owns the recently released expansion Heart of the Swarm then all three players will be granted access the expansion's content.

Using Spawning, StarCraft II players will have access to all of the game's team-based ladders (2v2 up to 4v4) alongside Custom game modes and the StarCraft II Arcade. Team vs. AI modes are also available.

Players are not able to access the single-player campaign using this method, nor will they be able to play in StarCraft II's 1v1 modes. Starter Edition players will only be able to play as one of StarCraft II's three races, which at time of writing is Terran.

Additionally, Blizzard says that players who use Spawning will get an in-game achievement and portrait.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm was released earlier this year, and requires a copy of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty to play. Blizzard reported that the expansion in its first 48 hours on sale.

For formation on StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, .