The official StarCraft II blog has confirmed that global play functionality will be coming to the popular strategy game, allowing player's from different retail regions to create accounts and play on the others.

The blog explains the implementation in depth, which is essentially the same way it was handled for Diablo 3, with "Each region will have separate profile data, meaning that characters, profiles, ladder rankings, progress, and friends lists will not carry over from region to region."

• Players will be able to freely switch between regions via the StarCraft II login screen.
  
• When your region’s game servers are undergoing maintenance, you may be able to play in a different region that is not down for maintenance.
  
• Your game language and user interface will not change when you change regions.
  
• Players using Global Play will be subject to the in-game policies of their selected play region.

A specific launch date has not been disclosed, but we're told to expect it in "the coming months".