Blizzard is reportedly making a third attempt at creating a StarCraft shooter, led by former Far Cry executive producer Dan Hay, who joined Blizzard in 2022.
Right after Microsoft announced that StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection would be coming to the Game Pass subscription service in November, it turned out that Blizzard was also working on a StarCraft shooter.
The information comes from Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier while speaking to IGN’s Unlocked podcast (below) about his novel book PLAY NICE: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. The book mentioned the StarCraft shooter created by Hay, and IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey asked Schreier if it was likely to actually come out.
“If it isn’t canceled!” – Schreier replied. “It’s Blizzard after all. Their history with StarCraft shooters is not good.
“Yes, this is a project that, as far as I know, is in development, or at least it was in development at the time I wrote this book. They are working on a StarCraft shooter, StarCraft is not dead at Blizzard.
“The purpose of this book is not to give you a bunch of information about upcoming events. That wasn’t the purpose of the book at all, it was more about telling a story and focusing on the things that happened. But I thought it was a very engaging and useful addition because it really shows that Blizzard can’t give up on StarCraft shooters.”
This is a reference to Blizzard’s infamous attempt in the past to release a StarCraft shooter in an attempt to expand the StarCraft franchise beyond its real-time strategy origins. StarCraft Ghost, announced in 2002, was intended to be a tactical-action console game in which you play as a deadly Ghost agent in the employ of the Dominion, but the game was canceled in 2006 after a series of delays.
A second attempt at a StarCraft shooter, codenamed Ares, was canceled in 2019 so that Blizzard could focus on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. Ares was said to be “like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe,” but like Ghost, it fell into disrepair.
Now it’s a third lucky break for Blizzard as it works on its new StarCraft shooter. We don’t have any details at this time, but perhaps the StarCraft Phil Spencer t-shirt he wore during Microsoft’s Tokyo Game Show 2024 broadcast was more than a simple reference to StarCraft’s release on Game Pass.
As for Hay, he joined Ubisoft in 2011 to work on Far Cry 3 and went on to become executive producer of the Far Cry franchise, which released Far Cry Blood Dragon, Far Cry 4 and Far Cry Primal. Hay was creative director and executive producer of Far Cry 5 and executive director of Far Cry New Dawn and Far Cry 6 before joining Blizzard in 2022 as CEO/VP.
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wy100@proton.me.
