I decided to watch my old WCG replays today (for the first time in 25 years and they play perfectly). It took me a ton of Googling to find out how to watch old games and there isn't an updated guide, so I've sharing it here for anyone who wants to watch good old brood war replays in 2026.

With this guide, it'll take just 5 mins to get up and running.

1. Download the classic installer lite (no campaign) which lets you switch to any patchhere.
Credit: O)FaRTy1billion[MM] (original forum thread)
WCG 2001 is 1.08b and you can just ask GoogleAI for the version of the tourney you are watching.

2. The next challenge is somehow finding a brood war "CD" since there's not a thing that's in CPUs anymore. After lots of googling by some miracle I found an ISO from this Reddit thread which you can just open with windows to extract the INSTALL.EXE file. here.

3. Open the Brood War ISO directory (you can mount/extract with Windows by right clicking) and copy its INSTALL.EXE file, and paste it into the folder where your StarCraft classic is installed. Rename this file to BroodWar.mpq. SC classic is now freeware and released freely so I don't think i'm violating any fourm rules by sharing this!

4. The game should now detect a CD and load. If you have issues running it cause of the resolution issues with modern PCs, this is the quick fix for masterace PC users:

Right-click your StarCraft.exe file and choose Properties.Click on the Compatibility tab at the top.
a)Check the box for Run this program in compatibility mode for: and select Windows XP (Service Pack 3) or Windows 98 / Windows Me from the dropdown menu.
b) Under the "Settings" section below that, check the boxes for:Reduced color mode (select 8-bit (256) color from its dropdown menu).
c) Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution.Click Apply, then OK, and launch the game again.

4. The replaypack of the WCG games from 2001 to 2010 are here.
Put it in the folder: .../StarCraft/maps/replays/

Enjoy