Blizzard is bringing StarCraft back, but not in the form longtime fans might have expected. The studio has officially announced a new game in the series that will be an open-world shooter, with a target release year of 2030.
The announcement was made during the opening ceremony of BlizzCon 2026, where Blizzard showed the first cinematic trailer for the project.
A very different StarCraft
Rather than returning to the real-time strategy formula that made the series famous, the new game will put players on the ground in an open-world shooter set in the StarCraft universe.
The project is being led by Dan Hay, a former Ubisoft executive known for his work on the Far Cry series. Hay joined Blizzard after spending years working on the franchise, including several of its major entries.
The announcement trailer focuses on the Terran Dominion and its soldiers as they prepare for battle against the Zerg. Blizzard has not shown actual gameplay yet, however, so there is still very little known about how the open-world shooter will actually play.
There is also no confirmed information yet about the game's platforms, multiplayer features or the size and structure of its open world.
Blizzard has tried StarCraft shooters before
The idea of turning StarCraft into a shooter isn't new for Blizzard. In fact, the franchise has already had two major shooter projects cancelled.
The best-known example is StarCraft: Ghost, a third-person action game that was announced in 2002. Development continued for years before Blizzard eventually cancelled the project in 2014.
Blizzard later worked on another StarCraft shooter, codenamed Ares. That project was reportedly further along than Ghost and was described as an action game set in the StarCraft universe before it was also cancelled.
That makes the newly announced game particularly interesting. Blizzard is now making another attempt to take StarCraft beyond its traditional real-time strategy roots.
The Far Cry connection
There is another reason the announcement may sound familiar to shooter fans. Dan Hay spent much of his career working on Far Cry, eventually becoming one of the key figures behind Ubisoft's open-world shooter series.
That background makes Hay an interesting choice to lead a StarCraft game built around an open world and shooting, although Blizzard has not suggested that the new project is simply a StarCraft version of Far Cry.
StarCraft returns in 2030
Blizzard is currently targeting 2030 for the new StarCraft shooter. That means the project is still several years away, and the company has plenty of time to reveal more about it.
For now, the announcement gives us a very simple picture: StarCraft is returning, but this time as an open-world shooter rather than a new RTS.
After the cancellation of StarCraft: Ghost and Ares, Blizzard is getting another chance to make the idea work. Whether the third attempt will finally reach players remains to be seen.
A very different StarCraft
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