Blizzard’s Rumored StarCraft Shooter Can Never Escape a Warhammer 40K Criticism

If you’ve been aware of Starcraft’s presence in gaming for any length of time, you’re probably more than aware of just how important the series is. It has, after all, stood the test of time as one of the best RTS games out there.

But after its developers put the series into hibernation by pausing Starcraft II’s updates in 2020, many of us have been left wondering: where does the series go from here? Well, it seems like we may finally have an answer, and it’s most certainly not one that you’d expect.

New Rumors Suggest That a Few Developers Over at Blizzard Are Working on a Starcraft Shooter

Let’s address the elephant in the room first—this isn’t the company’s or the developer’s first rodeo with taking the franchise in new directions. Remember StarCraft: Ghost?

Meant to be a stealth-action shooter centered around a Terran ghost operative, it was met with an untimely demise after a long and tumultuous development cycle that started in 2001.

The same happened again with StarCraft: Ares, a first-person shooter developed using Overwatch’s engine and described as the series’ very own Battlefield. It, too, met the chopping block soon after being announced, as the staff was asked to focus instead on Diablo 4’s development.

Keeping such a track record in mind, when Jason Schreier reveals in a recent podcast appearance that a few at Blizzard are once again incubating a new Starcraft Shooter, it’s difficult not to wonder whether third time’s finally going to be the charm.

The people working on this are the same folks that were previously engaged with code-named Odyssey, a survival game that was also reportedly canned earlier this year. Interestingly, this may have been the recently leaked FPS title in development that we initially predicted would be set in the Diablo universe earlier this month.

Does that instill cautious optimism for a successful development cycle? Somewhat. This is a special franchise, after all, and it was never the gameplay that gave it the status in the first place.

It was always the immersive world its creators built within it, with the gritty Terran soldiers, the terrifying Zerg, and the mysterious, advanced Protoss all vying for survival.

Yet, the timing of this new rumor makes us rather curious, given how Warhammer 40K, the one franchise the series has been compared with the most, has just launched one of its most successful games of all time, and it, too, is a shooter.

If Blizzard Does Greenlight the Project, Then It May Need to Brace Itself for the Copycat Accusations

Of course, with any new StarCraft project, this is always the one topic that comes up: the comparisons to 40K. Spend your preferred length of time in a few particular gaming circles, and you’ll probably hear people claim that the series is just a Warhammer 40K clone.

Now, we’re not going to deny the similarities—they do, after all, tangibly exist. Both feature futuristic human soldiers, alien hordes, and mysterious, ancient factions.

But these comparisons tend to overlook a ton of the things that StarCraft just handles better. Where Warhammer 40K is unapologetically grimdark, StarCraft brings a different flavor of nuance with its factions, especially Protoss, whose culture, honor, and fall from grace bring a ton of emotional depth to the lore.

That being said, however, we need to also play the devil’s advocate here and state what’s just as obvious: the timing of it all, from Space Marine 2’s wonky but continued success to these new rumors emerging, is quite uncanny.

So, it’s a safe bet that, depending on how the in-development game turns out, people will undoubtedly draw parallels between the two franchises the way they always have.

But with all that out of the way, what are your thoughts on a Starcraft shooter? How do you think this new project will turn out? Let us know in the comments below.