Blizzard Preparing for StarCraft III?

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Image: Blizzard

A sequel to StarCraft II seems inevitable, but Blizzard may have finally set the gears in motion for a third installment. In a new update pertaining to the future of StarCraft II, the developer and publishing giant suggested that it was distancing itself from the decade-old game so it could put more thought into “what’s next.” While that could mean anything (movie? card game? another out-of-season April Fools’ joke?), it sounds a bit like StarCraft III to us.

“We know some of our players have been looking forward to some of the things we’re moving away from, but the good news is this change will free us up to think about what’s next, not just with regard to StarCraft II, but for the StarCraft universe as a whole,” Rob Bridenbecker (Executive Producer, Vice President at Blizzard Entertainment) wrote.

Some fans are convinced that a third installment won’t happen for a variety of plausible reasons, such as the fact that StarCraft II’s engine is still going strong (how different would StarCraft III be on a technical level, really?). Also, StarCraft II did a pretty decent job of wrapping up the story of Jim Raynor, Sarah Kerrigan, and other major characters. That said, our introductory point still stands, in that StarCraft III would be a guaranteed moneymaker for Activision and Blizzard.

As for those immediate changes, Blizzard announced that StarCraft II would no longer be getting additional for-purchase content. These include bonus characters, announcers, skin bundles, and premium arcades.

“We’re going to continue supporting StarCraft II in the same manner as we have with our previous longstanding games, such as Brood War, focusing primarily on what our core and competitive communities care about most,” Bridenbecker explained.

“What this means is that we’re not going to be producing additional for-purchase content, such as Commanders and War Chests, but we will continue doing season rolls and necessary balance fixes moving forward. On that last note, we’re not planning a Q4 balance update given that we did one a few months ago, but as always, we do plan to continue doing them as needed in the future.”

StarCraft II was released over a decade ago, in July 2010. Unlike the original, the game was designed as a trilogy of sorts, comprising a base game (Wings of Liberty) and two later expansions (Heart of the Swarm, Legacy of the Void). The game also received a campaign pack in 2016 called Nova Covert Ops, which stars psionic ghost operative Nova Terra.

Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

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