Let’s take something arguably genre defining and turn it into a fad chaser! Great idea.
Something needs to fill the gaping hole left behind after Concord’s death.
Are you forgetting StarCraft:Ghost?
Not at all! I think StarCraft: Ghost is a reinforcement of what I said in my response to Makhno.
I thought Ghost was a great idea, but the context surrounding it was fundamentally different. Ghost was a spin-off alongside an active RTS series. Starcraft was still a core Blizzard product, and StarCraft II was already an expected continuation. Nobody thought Ghost was replacing the genre identity of the franchise.
I was never expecting an SC2 after Brood War, honestly. I was hoping that if Ghost succeeded, either they’d expand their 40K ripoff into other genres and let the WHFB knockoff fizzle out, or they would see that people did want games other than RTS games that are obviously GW properties with the serial numbers filed off, and maybe look back at old games like Blackthorne or The Lost Vikings. Maybe they could even have created a Rock N’ Roll Racing 2.
Instead, we got a “not-WHFB” game in the EverQuest mold and more click-wait-click games with cow levels.
Let’s take everything the fans love about Starcraft and throw it away. Once we have a soulless aesthetic husk remaining we can slap it in to any piece of shit and count on nostalgia to bring in the buyers!
Why would branching out with a successful IP be bad? Are you mad at all the Warhammer games? Does Vermintide’s existence cheapen the Total War games?
You’re arguing against a position nobody stated. My criticism isn’t that an IP ever appears in another genre. It is the pattern of publishers repurposing established strategy franchises into monetization-friendly live-service shooters because that market is larger and more predictable.
Warhammer is a poor comparison. Games like Vermintide didn’t replace or redefine Warhammer; they existed alongside a still-supported core genre identity. The RTS space around StarCraft has effectively been abandoned for years. So when the first meaningful revival rumor turns out to be a shooter, I read it less as expansion and more as substitution.
If Blizzard announced a new RTS and also a shooter spin-off, I would not be critical. The reaction is about genre displacement, not genre diversification.
So you would rather get no Starcraft games than get a Starcraft game that is not an RTS?
Because I don’t know if you’ve looked at the numbers but RTS is pretty much dead. One of the biggest RTS-s of the past 5 years was a remaster of Age of Mythology and that sold less than a million units. Starcraft 3 would have to sell something like 3 million units at launch and have an estimate of hitting at least 7 million in 2 years, because ActiBliz has certain expectation for sales and those expectations far exceed what Starcraft 2 sold in its entire lifetime. Starcraft would have to sell Diablo numbers.
I’d be very surprised if we ever saw another mainline Starcraft RTS. I don’t think we’ll be seeing another Warcraft RTS either.
So you would rather get no Starcraft games than get a Starcraft game that is not an RTS?
This is such a wild take. We are absolutely drowning in bland games built on IPs that the new devs had no care for and were simply cashing in on. In what world are you thinking we need more blatant cashgrabs with a coat of StarCraft-tinted paint? And that we’re hoping for good things from Microsoft at this point? Nah, I’m good, thanks.
I wasn’t saying that we need another blatant cash grab. I was actually implying that if you want the IP to stay even remotely relevant you need to start looking beyond the RTS genre because that genre doesn’t pay the bills.
But since you went there, yeah I’d absolutely take who knows how many cash grab attempts if it means even a chance of getting some great games. I’m going to point at Warhammer because the other person also brought it up. Warhammer 40k franchise is also full of “cash grabs”. But between those cash grabs are absolute gems like Space Marine 1 and 2, Dawn of War series, Darktide, Rogue trader. If we rejected all Warhammer games as “blatant cash grabs” we’d actually be worse off. I’m not saying whatever shooter they’re working on is going to be great or anything of the sorts, but I’m not going to instantly dismiss it because it might be a cash grab. I’ll form that opinion when I’ve actually seen something more than an industry source stating they’re working on a shooter.
Don’t get my hopes up for StarCraft: Ghost again! I know you’ll just disappoint me. 😩
[Two years from now]: “Don’t you guys have phones?”
Current Blizzard wouldn’t have cancelled Ghost.
But will it be good?
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I want an awesome RTS, like Wings of Liberty, but I would absolutely play a StarCraft shooter with a really good story and gameplay. I have zero interest in another Overwatch or extraction shooter. I expect another low-effort reskin.
Firing up the new Starcraft shooter, the female voice in your coms says: “Run down this hallway, you’re going to need to prove you know how to crouch and jump over obstacles before you can learn how to switch weapon modes!”
yeah, I am gonna need something really special to get excited about another FPS shooter no matter what the wallpaper looks like.
FPS shooter
First Person Shooter shooter
go step on a partially melted ice cube in your socks.
Give us Ghost you cowards.
You can play it on the original Xbox, there was a leak maybe 2020 of a prerelease / wip.
I should grab some screencaptures of the ingame, but I’m sure there are plenty out there.
After everything they’ve done to their other key franchises… Surely no one is going to fall for this, right?
Do you even cell phone bro?
You think you do but you don’t
Blizzard hasn’t been good since they sold out to Activision.
This is a slight historical re-write.
Blizzard’s parent company since ‘98 (Vivendi) was the larger of two companies at the time of the merger in ‘08, and put forward $2b towards the merger vs. Activision’s $1b.
Vivendi remained the majority shareholder of the new entity, and chose to appoint Bobby Kotick as the CEO.
Activision-Blizzard didn’t buy-out majority control until ‘13 - well after the enshittification began.
So are they going to do another game thats pretty much just a reskin like when they turned that chinese mobile game into a diablo game?
Do you guys not have phones?
Oh boy… I see lots of crunch in the future of those poor devs.
It‘s so funny to me that Nexon is now known as the Arc Raiders owner. They threw money at Embark Studios and had nothing to do with development otherwise so don‘t expect anything great coming out of this.
They will forever remind me of Shattered Galaxy and how there has never been anything else like it.
“Now with less SA” -Blizzard, probably.
Saudi Arabia or Sexual Assault?
Is it gonna be pay-to-win?
Pay to buy, pay to play, pay to get upgrades, pay to get the best ending, pay to not play. (You will have to use premium currency to set the game down for more than a day or lose all progress.)
Sure, why the heck not 🤷
🤷Will it have cloud? What about A.I.?
…and more importantly, what about NFTs?!
If there are NPCs, there is AI.
You should be more specific. Ask about machine generated content or neuronal networks, etc.
StarCraft Brood War pro scene is still going strong! I encourage anyone curious about SC to dip back into the active pro scene. A new season of ASL (GSL of old) is going to start in the next month, or so. And for the sickos, Artosis has a daily YouTube of matches. His enthusiasm is unmatched.
Wait a sec… Brood war is the expansion for sc1.
Are you telling me that there’s still a competitive sc1 scene? Holy fuck. What are the metas even like in that game now? What level is the meta even at??
You’re in for one hell of a good time, my friend. The scene revived after SC1 Remastered and waning interest in SC2.
Here is Artosis’ daily cast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf0ynO5nqkPq_7Xn-973d2w
Here is the most recent ASL (season 21 will be on this same page): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5eBtuoj_HkdXKHNmBLAXg
There very much is still a scene and it’s pretty popular! The meta continues to change which is insane for such an old and allegedly “figured out” game. I see pros using units in matchups that I thought were completely unplayable. There’s a new funky half-island map (Roaring Currents aka Screaming Seas) that has shown some really wild games. I’m rambling, please check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@SOOPesports_EN
I play Starcraft 2 today, but freely admit that Brood War is way more entertaining to watch!
I’m not privy to the, now, decades-long evolution of competitive StarCraft. Why is Brood War more interesting to watch?
I watch both and I think Brood War is more interesting to watch because there are more fights that last longer and the RNG factor means you can’t tell how the fight is going to go before it happens. There are a lot of tense and exciting moments in Brood War compared to SC2. How many shots will miss when shooting up a cliff? Will this mine detonate and kill 3 dragoons? How long will it take the player to notice that a DT is slaughtering drones without a notification? Will the reaver shot connect or dud? Will the scourges connect?
Basically SC2 is a lot easier to play with very little RNG. Pro players don’t even attack each other early anymore because every cheese is solved. Brood War has a really good rock/paper/scissors balance that has shockingly lasted 25 years with no real balance patches. Also the game was remastered and the graphics are beautiful now.
Weird idea but bear with me: They could, and this will shock some of you, I hope you’re sitting in a safe position … They could revive Starcraft as fucking Starcraft!
