StarCraft is coming back as an open-world shooter, but you'll have to wait until 2030

[midian182]

Something to look forward to: StarCraft is coming back, but it's not the real-time strategy game that became a global phenomenon. This time, Blizzard is reimagining the franchise as an open-world shooter. Sadly, we won't get to play it until 2030.

Rumors of a new StarCraft game have been circling for a while now. Its existence was confirmed during the opening ceremony of BlizzCon with a three-minute cinematic video.

The video continues Blizzard's tradition of flashy and quite gory game promos. It shows a determined young recruit going through training before being dropped on an alien planet to face a swarm of Zerg forces. With his weapon seemingly out of ammo, we next see the slushy remains of the soldier being drained from his CMC Powered Combat Suit.

There are no gameplay clips at this early stage, but we do know it's going to be an open-world shooter rather than an RTS.

Dan Hay, GM & VP of StarCraft, told IGN about why Blizzard decided to change the format of one of the genre's most famous franchises.

"For us, when we think about the themes and we think about the opportunity for you to be on the battlefield and for you to go out and think about the vista, the opportunity to explore, and then to discover, and then to disrupt," he said.

"It's incredibly unique. And then when you think about the different factions that there are, we just wanted people to go out into these worlds and actually get a sense of what it's like to meet these different groups."

Hay also talked about using enemies as a "tool" against other enemies, which sounds like a feature that may appear in the finished game.

2030 is a long time away, of course, so why did Blizzard not just wait a bit longer before revealing the next StarCraft? Hay said sharing a "solid" release date keeps the team "honest," so it should release that year and not any later – but then we've heard those sorts of promises before.

We almost had a genre-changing StarCraft game more than 20 years ago. Blizzard announced StarCraft: Ghost in 2003. It was supposed to be a third-person shooter set in the StarCraft universe slated for an Xbox release later that year, and there was even an hour-long gameplay reveal. But prioritizing World of Warcraft and the upcoming next-gen consoles pushed back development and Ghost was eventually canceled.

There were other big reveals at BlizzCon, including Diablo 5 and World of Warcraft: Forever.

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StarCraft is coming back as an open-world shooter, but you'll have to wait until 2030

 

[Axeia]

Gore and grit, part of what made the original SC1 good and got weakened a bit in SC2.

Didn't expect it from modern Blizzard-Activision chasing that mythical non-existent 'modern audience'. If the game goes down that route instead of magical wheelchairs like WoW and DEI checklist Overwatch it might have a bright future.
PS: Nothing against it when it fits the scenario, it's the artificial overrepresentation and forceful insertion where it doesn't fit that annoys me to no end. WarCraft should be full of badass orcs sacrificing their eyes out and shattering their hands instead of whatever the heck it is now.

Keep this formulaic BS out of my games tyvm:

Just give me Terran hardware blowing Zerg to bits and the Terran getting ripped apart themselves. This announcement trailer thing at least seems to promise that. It being in the hands of Asian developers is a positive as well, their track record isn't as besmirched as that of their western counterparts.

The only thing that I found a little lacking in the video was the narration, didn't quite have that Blizzard charm. Not sure if that's a lack of Chris Metzen involvement or them going more for a Helldivers vibe.

PS: Don't think this has anything in common with StarCraft ghost. That was supposed to be a sneak around as a ghost operative single player game. Pretty sure whatever they had planned for that got recycled into the "StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops" DLC.

 

[erickmendes]

Ok, now give me playable Zerg race and you can have my money Blizz