Key Takeaways
- Blizzard is hiring staff for an upcoming open-world shooter game, possibly StarCraft-related.
- Previous attempts at adapting StarCraft into shooters have been canceled.
- Former Ubisoft developer Dan Hay may lead the revival of a new StarCraft shooter project.
Blizzard appears to be looking for new staff to assist with development on an upcoming game rumored to be an open-world shooter set in the world of the company’s hit franchise StarCraft. New job listings include associate design director and principal and senior designers for an unannounced game, with multiple mentions of an “open-world shooter game” rumored to be the aforementioned StarCraft title.
StarCraft is one of Blizzard’s biggest franchises, and one of its oldest, having pioneered the real-time strategy genre with its 1998 debut, which would go on to spawn a slew of sequels and spinoffs in the years following. However, despite the series’ roots in science fiction and focus on warfare and high-tech weaponry, previous efforts to adapt it into a shooter title fell short and ended up being canceled.
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Blizzard still seems committed to the concept, though, as recent job listings on the company’s official website have popped up, seemingly looking for developers to work on an unannounced shooter game. While the listings do not name StarCraft specifically, several of them mention an upcoming “open-world shooter” and previous rumors have already implied that Blizzard is looking to adapt the series into one.
Blizzard’s Third Attempt At a StarCraft Shooter May be Coming
These previous rumors, which came from journalist Jason Schreier’s book on Blizzard’s storied history, claimed that a new StarCraft shooter was in the works to be overseen by former Ubisoft developer Dan Hay. Hay is known primarily for his work as the head of the Far Cry franchise under Ubisoft before he left the company in 2021 to eventually end up at Blizzard.
Hay was originally tapped to head a brand-new survival game IP at Blizzard codenamed Odyssey before the company canceled the project in January of this year, seemingly leaving it behind for other projects. While Hay’s original project at Blizzard may never see the light of day, he may now be in charge of reviving Blizzard’s efforts to bring StarCraft to the action shooter genre once and for all.
Blizzard has made two previous attempts to create a shooter game based on the franchise in the past, the first of which was a third-person shooter called StarCraft: Ghost that made it a good way into development before being canceled. Another project codenamed StarCraft Ares then came to light years later, originally revealed to be a first-person shooter set in the StarCaft universe, but it would face a similar fate shortly after, eventually being axed as well.
StarCraft
StarCraft was crafted by James Phinney and Chris Metzen. The original release was published by Blizzard Entertainment and the IP has been in control of the company ever since. The real-time strategy release sees players taking control of different races like the Terran, Zerg, Protoss, and more, as they battle against one another for galactic dominance.