It’s been seven years since the release of StarCraft: Remastered, eight since StarCraft 2’s last expansion, and close to a decade and a half since StarCraft 2 itself- all of which is to say that fans of Blizzard’s sci-fi strategy series have been starved for far too long. It seems, however, that the company might be working on bringing it back in some fashion.
That’s as per journalist Jason Schreier, who recently appeared on the IGN Unlocked podcast (caught by Windows Central) to talk about his upcoming book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. While discussing the book and its contents, Schreier also touched on a new piece of alleged information mentioned in the book as well- that a new StarCraft game is in development.
As per Schreier, the game in question is a shooter spinoff. When Blizzard Entertainment cancelled its survival game, Odyssey, earlier this year as part of Microsoft’s mass layoffs (the first round), though most of the project’s development team was let go, a handful stayed behind and started incubation on a StarCraft shooter. The project, currently in the very early stages of development, is allegedly being led by Dan Hay, formerly of Ubisoft, where he was a Far Cry veteran.
This is far from Blizzard Entertainment’s first crack at a StarCraft shooter. The first was, of course, the infamous StarCraft: Ghost, which was announced in 2002, but wouldn’t be officially cancelled until over decade later. As per reports, there was also Ares, a Battlefield-inspired shooter that was cancelled in 2019. Read more on that through here.
Whether this new project will enjoy better luck than its shelved precursors remains to be seen, but it’s certainly good news that Blizzard Entertainment is at least attempting to bring the franchise back from its extended slumber.
In other StarCraft news, StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection are coming to PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate in November.