
According to the rumour mill, Blizzard is currently working on a shooter game in the StarCraft universe – again. By my counting this would mark the company’s third attempt at developing a shooter StarCraft shooter, and given past history, it’s easy to be skeptical this game will ever see the light of day.
But today I want to take the glass half full approach and assume the game will arrive. What would I – a long-time StarCraft fan – like to see out of a shooter in this universe?
I’ll start by saying that the thought of a StarCraft shooter is not something that fills me with joy off the bat, as you might have gleaned from the tone of my opening paragraphs. As I’ve said many times before, I think StarCraft II is one of the greatest games ever made, and I think it may be best to just let the franchise lie. It feels to me that there’s nowhere to go from here but down.
If StarCraft were to continue, I’d want it to stay true to its real time strategy roots. The RTS genre is in a pretty sorry state these days, and it could use a new champion to fill SC2‘s shoes. I would hate to see the success of a StarCraft shooter kill hope of more RTS in the franchise in the same way World of Warcraft killed Warcraft RTS.
But again, I’m trying to be glass half full today, so let’s try to imagine how a shooter could be a worthy continuation of the franchise. There are two things any StarCraft shooter needs to do if it’s going to get any interest from me.
The first is that it needs to have a PvE focus. Partly because that’s my preference as a player, and partly because I just don’t think it makes sense for Blizzard to put out another PvP shooter when Overwatch exists. With Overwatch 2 dropping the ball on PvE content, there’s a gap in Blizzard’s roster waiting to be filled.
The second is that it needs to include playable characters from all three of the main races, not just Terrans. I think the choice of three factions is too central to the franchise’s identity to lose, and as a Protoss main since the age of seven, I have little interest in any StarCraft game that doesn’t give me the option to pledge my life for Aiur.
I might be willing to make an exception for a story-driven game focused on a single character, like the never released StarCraft: Ghost, but I don’t think Blizzard has any appetite for single-player games these days. I would bet any amount of money this will be a live service title of some sort.
One obvious option would be make “Helldivers 2 But StarCraft.” That certainly could work, but I think that too easily lends itself to a game where only Terrans are playable, and I don’t think that kind of match-based play would do justice to the depth of the StarCraft universe. I want something with open world zones and proper storylines, and a recent job posting for an open world shooter game does give me some hope on that front.
The more I think about it, the more I think the best choice is to make a looter shooter, and in particular one in the vein of Warframe or The First Descendant, with a wide variety of playable characters from all three races.
There are a lot of StarCraft units that could be converted into shooter characters, especially if we include campaign and co-op specific units. For Terrans it’s an especially easy fit, as many of their units are already just dudes with guns. Marines, marauders, medics, firebats, HERCs, and ghosts could all easily become characters in a looter shooter.
Protoss also has pretty robust options, including zealots, adepts, high templar, dark templar, and ascendants. I think some of the smaller cybernetic units like stalkers and immortals could also work.
For Zerg it’s a bit trickier. While I’m sure there are people out there who would be happy playing as Random Hydralisk #24601, I don’t think most Swarm units work very well as playable characters from either a lore or a gameplay perspective.
I do see a solution, though: the Primal Zerg introduced in Heart of the Swarm. Being free-willed individuals who can come in a nearly infinity variety of shapes and sizes, they’re an ideal choice for player characters. You could also include some liberated infested Terrans as playable characters.
I do think that in order to do Zerg and Protoss characters justice the game would need more robust melee mechanics than most shooters, but that could be a fun mechanical hook to help set this apart from similar games.
A downside of offering characters from all three races is that it would make the “looter” part of the game a bit more challenging. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Protoss zealots to be running around with Terran gauss rifles, and creating unique loot for each character would be prohibitively expensive, even for a big developer like Blizzard.
A potential compromise would be to have a shared loot pool for each race. Terrans could collect guns and gadgets like you’d see in any other loot shooter, while Protoss could equip themselves with a variety of psi blades and khaydarin amulets, and the Zerg could empower themselves by collecting the essence of slain enemies. It would be pretty cool if Zerg characters could mix and match different appendages based on their equipped essence.
You could also have some characters that draw from multiple loot pools where it makes sense. Infested Terrans could use a mix of Terran and Zerg drops, and maybe the psionic Terran characters could have limited access to Protoss gear.
In terms of story, my big concern is that the designers will do what World of Warcraft did and go straight back to total war between the factions without any good justification for why. It doesn’t really make sense for them to all be buddies, either, but I think the current paradigm of everyone just kind of going back to their corners and agreeing to stay out of each other’s way makes the best sense. And it would just be boring to keep rehashing the same conflicts of old.
There are plenty of smaller threats still active that could make for good stories. The Kel-Morians, feral Zerg broods, the Tal’darim, various smaller Terran pirate and terrorist groups, any hybrids that might have survived the End War, and even the UED could all make for good enemy factions in a StarCraft shooter. An invasion by an imperialistic UED in particular could be an interesting story hook, though they’d need some new edge to justify why they don’t just get curbstomped like last time.
I also think this could be a great opportunity to introduce an entirely new threat to the setting. We know there are a lot of intelligent aliens in the StarCraft universe beyond the Zerg and the Protoss; we’ve just seen almost nothing of them. Without the need to worry about balancing an additional RTS faction, a shooter would be a great opportunity to introduce a new alien race as the next big bads.
It’s also an easy way to create a threat that’s relevant to all three races. The Terrans get invaded, the Protoss decide to defend them as part of their commitment to the Dae’Uhl, and the Zerg are just there to chow down on some juicy new essence.
Also, please don’t bring Raynor back. I love him to death, but the poor dude’s earned his retirement.
To be honest, if and when the veil is lifted on this hypothetical StarCraft shooter, I still expect to be disappointed. StarCraft II set the bar so high, and although the Worldsoul Saga for WoW has bucked the trend somewhat, most of Blizzard’s recent releases have been pretty bereft of artistic vision. I have a deep foreboding that it’s just going to end up being a trend-chasing extraction title.
But this thought exercise has at least convinced me that it is possible to create a shooter in the StarCraft universe that I would be excited to play.
