I do not need to get anyone’s hopes up, however with BlizzCon 2026 now simply over per week away, it truly is beginning to appear like one thing—presumably one thing large—is going on on the planet of StarCraft.
The joy started earlier this week when Korea’s Chosun (Google translated, by way of WCCFTech) ran a narrative saying Nexon is near finalizing a deal to develop a brand new recreation based mostly on the StarCraft sequence. As Chosun famous, the sequence has been dormant since StarCraft Remastered in 2017; the final unique StarCraft recreation, StarCraft 2, arrived all the way in which again in 2010. Regardless of that, the sequence stays massively standard in Korea.
The StarCraft subreddit took some points with the report: For one factor, Chosun urged the brand new recreation could be StarCraft 3, moderately than the StarCraft shooter Nexon is reportedly working on. There are additionally considerations that the report is perhaps correct, given CEO Junghun Lee’s enthusiasm for generative AI and microtransactions. Nonetheless, the timing appeared proper: BlizzCon 2026 runs September 12-13, which is now lower than two weeks away.
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That is how issues remained till earlier immediately, when the StarCraft website began glitching, in the way in which that does not occur except it is intentional: Photos twitching, textual content flashing, all that kind of factor. The traditional lack of sign proper earlier than one thing occurs—that is most likely not a coincidence, proper?
It’s kind of extra conspiracy-coded, however the WoW subreddit has additionally seen a moderately peculiar gap in the main stage schedule—about an hour, early on the primary day, that is unaccounted for. What would possibly match into that hour? Nicely, something that takes 60 minutes or much less, actually, however the prevailing opinion appears to be StarCraft.
Regardless of the scenario, that hole is certainly there:
Our resident Blizzard pro Tyler Colp cast his wizened eye upon the BlizzCon floor map and noticed nothing carved out for StarCraft, so even when a brand new recreation is introduced, it seemingly will not be playable—though it is potential Blizzard is camouflaging a demo space within the Nicely of Eternity or no matter.
The rumored Nexon shooter is not the one StarCraft spinoff recreation that could be within the works: Blizzard was reportedly “incubating” a StarCraft shooter of its personal in 2024, below the steering of former Far Cry director Dan Hay. It does not strike me as particularly seemingly that two StarCraft shooters are in improvement concurrently, however Hay’s LinkedIn signifies that he is nonetheless a Blizzard, so on the very least it does not seem that he is discovered a brand new residence for himself and his venture at Nexon.
Including to that, earlier this 12 months Blizzard was trying to rent a “lead designer of innovation” for an open world shooter utilizing Unreal Engine, the studio lately dropped a major patch for StarCraft 2, and most lately, it revealed that this 12 months’s BlizzCon rewards will embody a 15-day co-op XP enhance for Commander development in StarCraft 2. That is fairly small, certain, however as Tyler stated, that is the sort of stuff that will get followers wound up actual good.
Given all of the shooter hints, it does not appear very prone to me {that a} StarCraft 3 RTS would be the large announcement—if there may be in truth an enormous announcement in any respect. A shooter would additionally appear to comport with Microsoft’s post-Phil Spencer technique of specializing in video games with the potential to go over large with mass audiences. Something’s potential, and albeit I feel precise StarCraft 3 would offer a way more speedy enhance to Microsoft’s gamer cred than an all-new shooter. However is Microsoft actually going to take a threat on a distinct segment style when it is cancelling big survival games and MMOs? I think not.
A method or one other, we’ll discover out quickly sufficient—BlizzCon opening ceremonies kick off at 10:30 am PT/1:30 pm ET on September 12. I’ve reached out to Blizzard and Nexon for remark and if anybody spills the beans, I am going to let .
Hi, I’m Rishab. I’m a passionate pc gamer and an avid video game content writer. I have been involved with video games for over 2 decades now, and even today, after playing an astronomical number of games over the years, I’m still eager for more. In my free time, you will find me enjoying a hot cup of coffee and playing my favorite relaxing fishing game, Dave the Diver.
