Reports are circulating that Blizzard Entertainment has joined forces with the Korean gaming company Nexon. Together, they are said to be working on a new shooter game based on the popular StarCraft brand. Nexon is well-known in the gaming world. They own the studio Embark, which created the games Arc Raiders and The Finals.
This news comes from a report published on a Korean news site called dnews. The story was later shared on the gaming forum Resetera. According to the report, sources from inside the industry say that Nexon signed a special agreement with Blizzard last year. This deal was specifically for making new content using the StarCraft intellectual property. Nexon has reportedly put together a special team just for this project. This team is working inside Nexon’s shooting game division, which strongly suggests the new game will be a shooter. Not many other details are known right now. However, it is said that a famous StarCraft modder named Choi Jun-ho has been hired to help guide the development team.
This information follows rumors from earlier this year. Those rumors suggested that Blizzard was getting ready to announce a StarCraft project at BlizzCon in September. These recent reports also follow talk from last year that Blizzard was looking into making a StarCraft shooter. Jason Schreier, a well-respected reporter who has written books about Blizzard’s history, told IGN that the company is indeed working on a shooter. He stated that StarCraft is not dead at Blizzard. The report says that Dan Hay, who used to work on the Far Cry series, is in charge of this new project.
If these reports are true, this would be the third time Blizzard has tried to make a StarCraft shooter. The first attempt was a game called StarCraft Ghost. That game was shown to the public but was cancelled almost exactly 20 years ago. The second attempt was never officially announced. It was reportedly code-named Ares and was cancelled back in 2019.
This would not be the first time Blizzard has worked with another company to make a game based on one of its big brands. Not too long ago, Blizzard partnered with the Chinese gaming giant NetEase. They worked together to create the mobile game Diablo Immortal. Even after the two companies had a falling out, that game remains a big part of Blizzard’s plans for the Diablo series. It is possible that Blizzard is doing something similar with Nexon for this new project.
Perhaps a more important question is what kind of game this will be if the news is true. Blizzard games are usually about people playing together. It is one of the company’s main ideas. So, multiplayer will almost certainly be a part of this new game in some way. But Overwatch is also a futuristic multiplayer shooter made by Blizzard. If this new StarCraft shooter is real, it will need to be different enough to stand alongside Overwatch.
Nexon is the Korean company that owns the studio Embark, which made Arc Raiders. They also produced The First Berserker: Khazan last year, and the popular game Dave the Diver in 2023. In addition to these, they run a number of online games. These include Sudden Attack and MapleStory.
