It’s almost hard to believe but StarCraft II is officially ten years old now. Launching in the Spring of 2010, the highly anticipated sequel to arguably the greatest Real-Time Strategy game of all time delivered and then some, with Blizzard providing two expansions, or episodes, to the game, ensuring a long and enjoyable run in the PC gaming community. However, not long after the third episode, Legacy of the Void was released, the updates and patches to the game became less frequent, which is usually the signs of the studio starting the process of winding down the development. In a blog post, Blizzard Entertainment made it official, announcing that there will be no more major updates for StarCraft II, and putting the game into maintenance mode.
In the post, Executive Producer Rob Bridenbecker stated that “What this means is that we’re not going to be producing additional for-purchase content, such as Commanders and War Chests, but we will continue doing season rolls and necessary balance fixes moving forward.” Basically, the game will now only be worked on when things aren’t fully balanced, as well as the regular seasonal rolls that most online games already implement. As for the future of the franchise, Bridenbecker stated that “We know some of our players have been looking forward to some of the things we’re moving away from, but the good news is this change will free us up to think about what’s next, not just with regard to StarCraft II, but for the StarCraft universe as a whole.”
This is both intriguing and interesting as Blizzard has apparently tried this before with the supposed StarCraft First Person Shooter title that was being worked on. That was until it was completely canceled by the company and the development team split up in order to focus on Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. Not to mention the famous, or infamous StarCraft Ghost which almost came out before being shut down. Ironically, the game’s previously unreleased footage was leaked earlier this year, and it looked like it was fully playable.
The first episode of StarCraft II, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, launched in 2010, and with the unfathomable task of following up the original StarCraft, the odds were stacked against it. Despite this, the game was critically acclaimed, with fans and reviewers praising the combat, story, and the classic RTS mechanics that the franchise is known for. The company followed this with two episodes, which were additional content for both the story and the online multiplayer. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm launched in 2013 and continued the game’s success, bringing in the next chapter of the story and some new features for the multiplayer.
The same formula followed with the third and final episode in 2015, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, which ended the main story and brought in some new components for players. As we already mentioned, it wasn’t long after this launched that the company started to slow down the major updates and new content. They did add lot of new things, however, such as the Nova missions that expanded the storyline, and the War Chests, a special box that contains special cosmetics for each seasonal roll. The company’s current major projects include Overwatch 2, Diablo IV, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and the mobile game Diablo Immortal. We’re more than likely going to hear about those and more when the company hosts its online event BlizzConline in February 2021.