YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Blizzard Revives 'StarCraft' Franchise with Open-World Sci-Fi Shooter

41 points malloci 35 minutes ago 57 comments

strbean 22 minutes ago | parent

Are we finally going to get StartCraft: Ghost ?

ModernMech 15 minutes ago | parent

ikr, that's the first thought I had too. Looking forward to Warcraft Adventures next. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_Adventures:_Lord_of_t...

jceg 21 minutes ago | parent

Incredible to see how disconnected Blizzard is from its customers. One more shooter, when we wanted the next RTS.

swiftcoder 17 minutes ago | parent

A full WarCraft III expansion is more than I expected in what has become such a niche genre

ramesh31 15 minutes ago | parent

>"when we wanted the next RTS."

You think you do, but you don't.

sailingparrot 9 minutes ago | parent

It’s funny because that’s word for word what blizzard said after years of people asking for WoW Classic. Which ultimately they ended up making and is very successful. Sometimes people know what they want.

lovich 14 minutes ago | parent

I guess they’re wanting to go after the void Bungie left with Destiny?

I can’t tell if this is too late a move though or if there will be a void and a desire still by the time this releases.

Is there any other studio working on releasing a similar game already since it was obvious Destinys life was short lived for a while with Bungies focus on Marathon?

shimman 14 minutes ago | parent

Let's not kid ourselves that it would be a good RTS. Starcraft 2 + expansions is a very poor game compared to brood war. If you haven't watch the ASL it's definitely worth a gander:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIpLl2W2chg

I'm still amazed that Blizzard dropped the ball on recreating the same environment that enables dynamic play, instead it's always a formation of rock paper scissors with very little nuance in between.

dragontamer 8 minutes ago | parent

Starcraft2's problem was that it was 3 separate games with incredible patches that completely changed everything.

The balance team had no idea of the game they wanted StarCraft 2 to be. By the time it all settled down the community went back to SC:BW.

I'm positive there was some combination of SC2 patches that was amazing, if only the patch/balance team stuck with it. I don't know which set of patches that was though.

----------

I have ranted before about deathballs. Beginners want deathballs but advanced players want something deeper than a deathballs.

For all of their faults, SC:BW and AoE2 are anti-deathball. SC:BW is somewhat "accidentally" anti-deathball because of map bumping and poor patching.

AoE2 has incredible siege and defensive emplacements (castles and bombard cannons and siege onagers) that counter deathballs, above and beyond SC2 anti-deathball options.

The AoE2 deathballs unit, the Crossbowman (line) needs like 30+ units before it really starts to feel oppressive, and universally everyone has rams and mangonels to kinda deal with them (or Skirmishers).

dachan 6 minutes ago | parent

SC1 may have been harder but it's not better.

the__alchemist 12 minutes ago | parent

> You think you do, but you don't.

Nailed it. People want patched versions of the same RTS. AoE4 came out a few years ago as an IMO fantastic RTS which smoothed over many of the idiosyncrasies of AoE2. From a multiplayer perspective, it was doomed from the start, for not being AoE2. I couldn't even convince my friends to play it with me. (Everyone is still playing AoE2, and expansions + patches are still regular)

itake 8 minutes ago | parent

Blizzard released sc2 and people Happily switched over. I think at sc2 peak, maybe 10% still played sc1 and 90% played sc2

mococa 3 minutes ago | parent

I think I have over 5000 hours on SC2, played since day 0 until fewer years ago.

mococa 3 minutes ago | parent

SC1 was full of pathfinding bugs

jwitthuhn 7 minutes ago | parent

That is a quote from the lead developer of WoW about how everyone asking for classic wow thought they wanted it but wouldn't actually play it. Then blizzard made classic wow and it was a huge hit.

Grombobulous 12 minutes ago | parent

Blizzard being a generally terrible developer aside, I don’t think you’re right about this.

RTS is not a very popular genre all things considered, and the ARTS/MOBA variants are dominated by DOTA and League of Legends.

You also can’t play RTS games on consoles.

A lot of fans of StarCraft still wish they saw StarCraft: Ghost see the light of day. Arguably the franchise is very much underdeveloped. The IP and story would work well for many game genres that haven’t been explored.

If StarCraft 3 comes out it would only be popular in South Korea and possibly not all that popular at all even there.

whalesalad 11 minutes ago | parent

Honestly as someone who grew up playing SC, WC3 etc... it gets kinda old. If you have played one, you have played them all. I totally welcome an FPS in the Starcraft world and something fresh from Blizzard.

jstummbillig 11 minutes ago | parent

While I can feel the pain, the truth is somewhat less outrageous and more somber: Customers for a Blizzard scale RTS simply do not exist.

chao- 11 minutes ago | parent

There is also a disconnect between "customers" and "players". I am under the impression that RTS games have proven harder to monetize in an ongoing manner, or at least harder relative to the effort required to build and maintain them. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution, and this is just one person's limited perspective... but it seems to be the case thus far.

aliasxneo 10 minutes ago | parent

In the very same conference they announced WoW Forever. So whatever it is, it's not necessarily systemic, because they seemed to have nailed that audience.

cbg0 9 minutes ago | parent

From Blizzard's perspective, this "we" isn't worth the trouble in terms of sales figures. The audience for RTS has fragmented quite a bit into other niches and Blizzard wants to do huge releases with great ROI for their IP, not pay fan service to us.

icantevenhold 9 minutes ago | parent

I’ve been waiting for a rehash of StarCraft Nova or whatever it was called forever - speak for yourself.

jleehn 9 minutes ago | parent

What evidence do you have that this is the general sentiment among 'customers' rather than your own? Genuinely asking, I too would have preferred an RTS but my sense is the player base for RTS is much smaller than a shooter.

itake 6 minutes ago | parent

Who are they targeting? With SC IP, I’d assume they are targeting SC fans, who probably want more RTS.

If you’re trying to launch a cool new shooter, why use SC IP?

least 5 minutes ago | parent

Are they disconnected from its customers in current year?

They may be alienating the core audience that made them who they are, but I don't think they're disconnected from their customer base, which has changed. RTSes are not popular and they are not platform-agnostic like an FPS is.

2OEH8eoCRo0 21 minutes ago | parent

I was wondering how Blizzard's best creative minds would ruin an RTS and make it live service...

chao- 17 minutes ago | parent

AFAIK the majority of people responsible for their legacy RTS games have left, so I figure they feel less capable of even trying.

ryan_n 12 minutes ago | parent

They announced a new expansion for Warcraft III this past weekend actually. So they are definitely still trying : )

eigenspace 10 minutes ago | parent

It's not a live service: https://wccftech.com/blizzard-starcraft-shooter-rejects-live...

2OEH8eoCRo0 8 minutes ago | parent

I'll believe it when I see it- 2030 is a ways off! Diablo IV looked good initially too!

mococa 20 minutes ago | parent

OMG!

khalic 19 minutes ago | parent

2030 lol

swiftcoder 18 minutes ago | parent

4 years out, and only a cinematic trailer. It's a lot to take on faith at this point, though I do hope its good

eykanal 18 minutes ago | parent

"Set to launch 2030"

Why even bother to announce this now? I only see downsides in mentioning something that far out.

loloquwowndueo 16 minutes ago | parent

“First time?” Buster Scruggs meme

ralfd 15 minutes ago | parent

Maybe to protect the project from internal politics?

ryan_n 14 minutes ago | parent

This is pretty typical for a new blizzard game. For example Diablo 3 and 4 were both announced 4 years prior to release. Not saying it’s good or bad, but it’s not unusual.

greggoB 6 minutes ago | parent

I came to say the same - I remember it being an excruciatingly long wait for SC2, which was also apparently over 3 years between announcement and release [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft

__s 10 minutes ago | parent

Meanwhile Nintendo announced Ocarina of Time remake out November

torh 16 minutes ago | parent

All I could think about watching the trailer was that this must be a game based on Starship Troopers.

loloquwowndueo 15 minutes ago | parent

2030? I see they changed how one spells “Daikatana”.

brightball 15 minutes ago | parent

Impressive. They managed to turn the hype video in a more depressing parody of Starship Troopers.

whalesalad 14 minutes ago | parent

Blizzard has always had some of the best cinematics in the industry. They're usually 100x better than the actual game. I wish they had a movie studio.

close04 14 minutes ago | parent

No gameplay footage and a release date in the next decade. Blizzard is just testing the waters to see if there’s any interest in yet another shooter. Or rather if the StarCraft franchise still has clout.

20-25 years ago I’d be certain Blizzard has some aces up their sleeves. Today not so much. They probably do this to respond to pressure from corporate overlords.

KptMarchewa 14 minutes ago | parent

I'm okay with them generating some popularity with the franchise. That would benefit any potential RTS later.

2030 though... isn't that like 8 years away?

nozzlegear 13 minutes ago | parent

I watched the live reveal and thought it looked cool. I played a lot of the RTS growing up and remember being hyped for Ghost, so seeing an FPS in the Starcraft universe is interesting. More interesting to me than another RTS, which I personally would not play (just not an interesting genre to me anymore).

mritchie712 9 minutes ago | parent

trying to reconcile AGI timelines with this video games timeline

bix6 9 minutes ago | parent

What is everyone’s favorite RTS right now? Hobby / non-competitive. Anything worthwhile on mobile?

the__alchemist 3 minutes ago | parent

AoE2. Whether you can label that non-competitive is questionable, however.

embedding-shape 3 minutes ago | parent

[delayed]

mbowcut2 8 minutes ago | parent

So, it's a Helldivers reskin that's going to be 10 years late to the party?

jjcm 7 minutes ago | parent

> a target release date of 2030

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for a StarCraft shooter despite it not being StarCraft at all (I enjoy the universe). I wanted StarCraft: Ghost back in the day, and this feels like a taste of that dream.

That said, targeting a release of 2030 is wild to me. Look at the Astra game dev hype that's hitting twitter right now. Yes it's all filtered to the best possible examples / yes people are not one shotting these things, but still it's very clear that LLMs are beginning to be very capable at game dev in a way that doesn't look/feel like ass.

LLMs are going to become more capable over time. I think most of us can agree that eventually they'll be competitive with AAA developers given enough GPU cycles. I would argue that given rate of improvement, we're looking at that point coming in the next year or two.

To emphasize this point, a year ago GPT-5 got released. This was the type of game it would make: https://youtu.be/yTHo7tMborY?t=324

This is the type of game Astra is making: https://youtu.be/GuO_Eo34C8E?t=348

It's just starting to be capable of making assets in blender / unreal. Given this rate of advancement, what is the state going to be like 4 years from now? It really feels a bit like the "travelling to distant stars" problem, where at some point it's faster to wait for better engines than to leave now. I worry that by the time this gets released, the market is going to be flooded with fully custom AAA games that are hyperniche. 4 years out is a long, long time to wait, and it's a longer time to bet on success / market dynamics.

dr_faustus 6 minutes ago | parent

WARHAMMER 40.000: SPACE MARINE 5 (i guess real studios will crank out two more of those before this one is released...)

bkolobara 5 minutes ago | parent

Starcraft 2 is the only game I still play from time to time. Yes, you can probably make more money making a shooter, but there is a reason Starcraft is such a cultural phenomenon.

It just makes me sad that every decision nowadays is driven by profit and there is just very little courage left to do something else.