We have reason to believe that Blizzard is trying to make a StarCraft themed shooter.
As reported by Windows Central, Jason Schreier revealed the existence of one such project currently in production. While he doesn’t have enough information to confirm if this StarCraft shooter will see the light of day, we are to believe that they have a small team developing it with Dan Hay, a veteran game designer who worked on X-Men Legends and the Far Cry franchise.
This rumor will naturally evoke memories of StarCraft Ghost, a stealth action game that would have come to the sixth generation of consoles. Blizzard announced StarCraft Ghost all the way back in 2002, and hadn’t confirmed its cancellation until 2014.
The game revolved around Nova Terra, a spy with psyonic powers who works for the Terran Dominion. While we don’t know much about the game’s plot, she supposedly would uncover a conspiracy that would lead her to questioning her loyalty to the Dominion. If you’re a younger gamer, we’ll spell it out for you: this game was openly sold to fans as Blizzard’s answer to Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell.
Nova would end up appearing in StarCraft II, including getting her own campaign DLC called Nova Covert Ops. This campaign also fleshes out her story and background, as it turns out she has aristocratic roots that were wiped from her memory.
This new StarCraft shooter looks like the opportunity to finally make StarCraft Ghost. If this were the case, it would make this title a nice counterpart to Metroid Dread, another recent title based on an idea conceived of years before, but only got produced and released now. But given what Blizzard has done to Nova’s story, they may have moved on from StarCraft Ghost and are working on a different scenario entirely.
After all, when Blizzard was producing StarCraft Ghost, they were hoping to rely on external developers Nihilistic Software, and then Swingin’ Ape Studios, to help them with the shooter game design. Today, Blizzard is at the forefront of the shooter market with Overwatch 2. Aside from creating a new spot in the market for them to occupy, Blizzard also sees a considerably different game market than what existed when they were making StarCraft Ghost.
Whatever this game is, we certainly hope Blizzard is smarter than other companies making titles like Concord to compete with them. Maybe the market is getting too crowded for yet another multiplayer live service title, but a narrative campaign focused game, with perhaps some modest multiplayer modes, would hit exactly right with fans and younger gamers looking for a new thrill. But we can only wait for when Blizzard finally officially reveals this title.
