Blizzard has reportedly been 'incubating a StarCraft Shooter again', which would be their 3rd attempt to the accursed idea.

Blizzard will reportedly make a new shooter set in the StarCraft universe. No, it's not StarCraft Ghost which was cancelled in 2014, but a different game. It's not Ares either, which, according to Kotaku sources, was also cancelled in 2019. This is a secret third thing.

Jason Schreier, writer for Bloomberg and soon to be author of a new book on Blizzard’s company culture, "Play Nice: the Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard", gave a sneak preview of some of the information covered.

Schreier was asked about an excerpt at the end of the book where it is claimed that Dan Hay, a former Far Cry developer (who eventually became an executive producer of multiple games), now works with Blizzard to complete the project. Hay joined Blizzard in 2022.

"Most of developers were laid off. A few remained with Hay to incubate, of all things a new StarCraft Shooter.... Perhaps, after Ghost and Ares the third time will be the charm."

Schreier clarifies citing Blizzard’s clearly-cursed experience with the meeting between StarCraft and shooter genres: "If it's cancelled, I mean, after all, this is Blizzard... Yes, there was a project, as far as i knew, in development. As of the time I wrote this book."

Schreier announced Play Nice on February 5, this year. The survival game mentioned was also dropped in January amid a dire flooding of layoffs following the Microsoft acquisition. So I think this information isn't outdated: "I suspect this one will make many headlines, I had an inkling that it would." He's got me there, but I'm not entirely to blame.

Blizzard’s bizarre triplet of failed attempts is fascinating, especially when you consider how far along the prototypes were. You can watch the full StarCraft Ghost gameplay trailer below. Kotaku's source told them that Ares "looked quite good" and its cancellation was a "massive surprise".

If this mysterious third project is also cancelled at some point in the future, Blizzard will have run to the edge of the StarCraft shooter and then turned around.

This new mystery project is probably not that far along. Schreier's use of the term "incubating", and the fact that he received this information shortly after the acquisition means we won't be hearing a third condename. If the past is any indication, I'm very excited to see screenshots in 2034. That would be five years after the project was cancelled in 2029.