Blizzard is once again trying to turn its iconic StarCraft RTS (real-time strategy) franchise into a shooter, as the studio has reportedly teamed up with Korean gaming giant Nexon for a rumoured genre-bending spin-off.
While unconfirmed by Blizzard, this rumour stems from an article by The Korea Economic Daily, which is one of the country’s biggest business newspapers. In it, the article states that a development team at Nexon is working on the project within the studio’s shooter division, with the title being led by a StarCraft modder.
Fans of StarCraft will surely be familiar with Blizzard’s track record when it comes to turning… or at least attempting to turn the franchise into a shooter, with the title receiving multiple spin-off projects that never saw the light of day. First was StarCraft Ghost, announced in 2002, which was set to be a tactical-action game where players took on the role of a Ghost operative. The game was delayed several times before being officially cancelled in 2006.
Then came Project Ares, yet another planned shooter spin-off that was set to be “like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe”. Once again, these plans fell apart as Blizzard shifted priorities to Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2, with the title being cancelled in 2019. Finally, in 2024, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on an announced third StarCraft shooter, this time with former Far Cry executive producer Dan Hay at the helm, but cut to two years later, and there’s still no news on the project, so its future remains up in the air.
While it’s possible that Nexon’s reported shooter could be some iteration of the one led by Hay, this seems unlikely, as the two titles are developed on different continents. After two cancelled StarCraft shooters, will third time’s be the charm for Blizzard? At least now, with the partnership with Nexon, which recently found huge Western success as the owner of Embark Studio of Arc Raiders and The Finals fame, this might be their most promising attempt yet.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
