Blizzard has reportedly partnered with Korean gaming big Nexon for yet one more crack at turning StarCraft into a shooter.
Whereas unconfirmed by Blizzard itself, the undertaking is the topic of an article in The Korea Economic Daily, the nation’s largest enterprise newspaper. The report states that Nexon has a improvement workforce devoted to the undertaking inside its shooter division, with a StarCraft modder put in as its undertaking lead.
Blizzard has lengthy held ambitions to launch a shooter spin-off from its sci-fi real-time technique sequence, whereas Nexon has lately discovered Western success inside the shooter house because the proprietor of Swedish improvement studio Embark Studio — the outfit behind The Finals and Arc Raiders.
Nonetheless, the report is cautious on the undertaking’s improvement — noting that Nexon beforehand partnered with Sq. Enix to develop a Last Fantasy spin-off that faltered in the planning phases. A be aware of warning right here is probably going sensible, too, contemplating Blizzard’s personal monitor file on deserted StarCraft spin-off tasks.
StarCraft Ghost, introduced in 2002, was Blizzard’s first try to develop the sequence past its real-time technique origins. Deliberate as a tactical-action console recreation in which you performed as a lethal Ghost operative in the make use of of the Dominion, it was canceled in 2006 after a sequence of delays.
A second StarCraft shooter try, codenamed Ares, was canceled in 2019 so Blizzard might concentrate on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. Ares was reportedly “like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe,” however, like Ghost, fell by the wayside. Lastly, in 2024, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier shared phrase of a third StarCraft shooter undertaking then in improvement inside Blizzard, with former Far Cry government producer Dan Hay, who joined Blizzard in 2022, main the cost.
Might Nexon’s shooter be the identical undertaking because the one Hay had been main, or a new iteration of it? This stays unclear, particularly since Hay’s undertaking had apparently been in improvement two years in the past, whereas Nexon’s recreation sounds more moderen — and developed on a totally different continent. IGN has contacted Blizzard for extra.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You may attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social