Blizzard has announced five official European launch events for the forthcoming release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

At midnight on July 26/27, key retail partners in France, Germany, Russia, Sweden and the UK will open their doors to players who want to be the first to purchase and play the new chapter in Blizzard's epic saga.

Here in UK the launch event will take place at:

GAME
100 Oxford Street
London, W1D 1LL

Doors will open at 11:00pm on the night of July 26/27. As well as being among the first to acquire the game, attendees will have an opportunity to meet with a member of the StarCraft II development team who will be present to welcome players and sign their copies.

Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase the standard edition of the game, as well as the special Collector's Edition which contains the following bonus items in addition to the game disc:

* The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a 176-page book featuring artwork from the game
* An exclusive 2GB USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor's dog tag, which comes preloaded with the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion set
* A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, cinematics with director's commentary, and more
* The official StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty soundtrack CD, containing 14 epic tracks from the game along with exclusive bonus tracks
* StarCraft comic book issue #0, a prequel to the comic series
* A World of Warcraft mini Thor in-game pet that can be applied to all World of Warcraft characters on a single Battle.net account
* Exclusive Battle.net downloadable content, including special portraits for your Battle.net profile, decals to customize your units in-game, and a visually unique version of the terran Thor unit

Similar launch events will be held internationally for players in other regions. Details on the specific locations and a full list of activities, competitions and giveaways for each of these events can be found at

the official site. .