StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm's new replay and resume features detailed by Blizzard

The upcoming release of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will add new replay and gameplay resume functions to the real-time strategy game, allowing players to watch replays of games with friends and even jump into a saved game from a specific point to try out different strategies.

On the official StarCraft website, Blizzard details how "Watch With Others" replays will work and how multiuser replay hosts can control those replays. With Heart of the Swarm, players will also have the ability to "Take Command" of those replays, then "jump right into any spot in a replay and take over the gameplay," Blizzard says.

Those features, and many others coming in the Heart of the Swarm expansion, are part of Blizzard's efforts to make learning the multiplayer component of StarCraft 2 — for both casual players and aspiring eSports players — easier on less experience players.

Blizzard also touches on the new Recover feature coming to StarCraft 2. In the event of a hardware or network connection failure, say at an eSports event, players will be able to restore and resume a game from a particular spot.