A new job listing from Blizzard seems to indicate that the studio behind Warcraft and Overwatch might be working on an open-world shooter and based on past reports, it might be a Starcraft FPS led by a veteran Far Cry developer.
On November 13, as spotted by fans on Reddit and IGN, Blizzard posted a new job listing. As with most video game job listings for unannounced games, the details are vague so we don’t officially know what game this job is connected to, but the listing does include a small detail that indicates it might be a big open-world FPS.
Here’s how Blizzard describes the job in the recently posted listing:
As the Design Director of Innovation, you will be the vision holder and owner of key strategic innovations on an upcoming open-world shooter game. You stay current with the latest developments in both the indie and AAA space. David Bowie is quoted as saying “Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting”–the idea of innovating in the deep end excites you, balanced with a pragmatic desire to turn dreams into reality that players can get their hands on and enjoy.
The key bit, which I bolded above in that text, is the phrase “open-world shooter game.” So whatever this next project is—and again, to be clear, we don’t officially know that yet—it’s safe to assume it won’t be a linear RPG or card game thing. And we might know more about this unannounced open-world shooter based on reporting by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier.
This is probably a job listing for a Starcraft spin-off
Earlier this year, Schreier told IGN that a rumored Starcraft shooter led by former Ubisoft developer and Far Cry 5 director Dan Hay was still being developed as far as he was aware, adding that “Starcraft is not dead at Blizzard.”
“The goal of [Schreier’s new book on the history and future of Blizzard, Play Nice] isn’t to get a bunch of scoops about upcoming things,” he said. “That wasn’t the purpose of this book at all, it was very much to tell a story and focus on stuff that had happened. But this felt like such an interesting and useful nugget to include because it really just shows you that Blizzard cannot quit StarCraft shooters.”
Previously, Blizzard was famously working on Starcraft Ghost, a third-person action adventure shooter set in the sci-fi universe. That ultimately was canceled in 2006. Then, Kotaku reported on Ares, a Battlefield-like Starcraft shooter that was canned in 2019 so the studio could focus on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2.
Is the third time the charm for Blizzard? Or will I be writing up a report about another canceled Starcraft spin-off in like two years on this very website? Stay tuned to find out.
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