So to tell this correctly, I have to give some background.
Back in March 1998, Blizzard Entertainment released its new sci-fi real-time strategy title StarCraft to become the third in what would become Blizzard’s foundational trio franchises, including Diablo and WarCraft. The title dropped players into the conflict between three space-faring species engulfing the Koprulu Sector, a remote region of space far-removed from Earth.
First is humanity, better known as Terrans in StarCraft. The Terrans are the newest inhabitants of the Koprulu Sector but determined to establish a foothold. It is a heavily industrialized military force with tanks that can morph into stationary siege engines, Battlecruisers that vary in size and armaments that make up most of the Terrans’ heavy firepower in the air, and the armored infantry backbone of any Terran force, the Terran Marines.
Next is the insectoid-like Zerg. The most terrifying of the three playable races, the Zerg exist to simply spread, fight, consume, and evolve. Fittingly referred to The Swarm, as well, Zerg don’t waste time spreading from planet to planet to kill or infect any species it finds, preferably the latter to continue The Swarm’s evolution. At the head of the Zerg is the Overmind, the consciousness at the heart of the Zerg’s hivemind and commands the Swarm.
Third is the Protoss. As old as the Koprulu Sector, itself, this ancient race is the most technologically-advanced species humanity has ever encountered. The psionically-empowered race was connected through what was referred to as the Khala, with Templar society and beliefs becoming the dominant ones on their homeworld of Aiur. Some would not subscribe to this, preferring their individuality and independence and as such, severed their connection to the Khala. These were referred to as the Dark Templar and settled on the planet Shakuras, away from the hostile gaze of the Templar.
This universe captured my imagine almost instantly and helped build my love for science fiction. It was unlike any universe I had experience to that point in my childhood. StarCraft was a fascinating blend of hyper-advanced sci-fi and western/frontier aesthetics present, especially with the Terrans, that was begging to be explored even-further.
It was also the game that got me into the wider world of video games. I had played some games before, but nothing that had really gotten its hooks into me the way StarCraft did. It wasn’t long after this I was looking for other strategy games to dabble in, leading me to Command and Conquer, while gravitating to sci-fi games more often than fantasy.
Blizzard would in December 1998 with the Brood War expansion that came with three new campaigns for the Protoss, Terrans, and Zerg and several new units for all three races. There was plenty of other gameplay updates, new multiplayer maps, and more lore to expand out this already fascinating universe.
The expansion saw all three races reeling from the events of StarCraft when a new Terran force, the United Earth Directorate, arrives to claim the sector. While this is happening, the Zerg-infested Terran and ultra-powerful psionic Kerrigan begins to efforts to take command of the Zerg Swarm after the Overmind was destroyed at the end of StarCraft’s base game.
StarCraft and Brood War would be lasting successes for Blizzard between sales for the core game, expansion, and Nintendo 64 port and the overwhelmingly positive reception from audiences and critics. It was also able to spawn a widely-known and successful professional scene in South Korea that remains active in 2026.
Blizzard’s first attempt to follow up on StarCraft would be in the mid-2000s with StarCraft: Ghost.
Unlike the first game, Ghost would trade the RTS genre to become a shooter that gave players control of the Terran Dominion Ghost agent Nova. It was announced in 2002, but would never make it to store shelves. New information would trickle out on occasion, the most famous being what was meant to be the game’s opening cinematic at BlizzCon 2005.
A true follow-up wouldn’t arrive until July of 2010 with StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, the first in the planned StarCraft 2 trilogy. Wings of Liberty would focus on the Terrans, specifically Jim Raynor and his groups efforts to destabilize the Terran Dominion. The two follow-up expansions, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, would turn the narrative focus to the Zerg and Protoss, respectively.
Like the original, StarCraft 2 was a critical and commercial success at release and has endured as a cornerstone game in the professional RTS scene around the world, especially in South Korea. It also meant that, unfortunately, the franchise once again went quiet for years and years.
The odd rumor would emerge here and there, but it seemed like Blizzard had largely moved on from its sci-fi franchise to focus on other projects like Overwatch and World of WarCraft expansions.
That all changed with BlizzCon 2026 and the announcement of StarCraft where Blizzard General Manager and Vice President Dan Hay introduced the new game. It will be the second attempt from Blizzard to make a non-RTS StarCraft title as Hay described the game as a “narrative-driven, open-world shooter.”
He brought with him a dramatic cinematic trailer chronicling the life of a Marine in the Terran Dominion named Holt. His life is juxtaposed to a mechanic at work repairing Marine power armor that’s clearly been through it against the Zerg. It comes together to reveal the horrifying truth – the armor being repaired was Holt’s after being killed in grisly fashion along with the rest of his company during his first deployment by swarming Zerg.
It concluded by revealing a 2030 release window, meaning it will be roughly 20 years between StarCraft games.
As excited as I am that a new StarCraft game is seemingly on the way, it isn’t lost on me the massive gap in time between releases. It isn’t the first Blizzard game to take a long time to release, but it is still the longest gap between releases in the same franchise in the studio’s history.
In that time, Blizzard released two new Diablo games with expansions for each, two Overwatch games, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and ten World of WarCraft expansions. All the while StarCraft sat in the background, gathering dust the same way it had from the end of 1998 to 2010 when it could have easily been one Blizzard explored much more intimately. The space western setting is a playground it seemed like Blizzard went out of its way to ignore
A universe populated by characters like Jim Raynor, Kerrigan, Artanis, Zeratul, Arcturus Mengsk, and various others should be easy to find ideas for. That hasn’t been the case, though. It has remained a franchise scarcely touched by Blizzard and has yet to break out of the RTS box. It is ripe for experimentation with genres ranging from horror to action-comedy and everything in-between.
Nothing should be off the table for StarCraft going forward. Doubley-so if 2030’s ends up being a success.
Minimum Wage Nerd 