The lead designer of StarCraft II is taking on a new position at Blizzard. Many developers are now working on a secret project.
Anyone who has been observing Blizzard and especially its employees in recent weeks and months may have noticed that there have been some restructuring. The top developers from some titles have been reassigned and redistributed within Blizzard. A while back, Tom Chilton, the former Game Director of World of Warcraft, switched teams and moved to a new project.
Now it has also caught David Kim, who has been the Lead Gameplay Designer of StarCraft II. In Blizzard’s official forum, he announced that he had “reached a point in his career where it’s time to face new challenges to continue to grow as a game designer.”
What exactly Blizzard is working on remains a mystery. However, a few hints can be found in the job postings from the past months. Just in November 2016, Blizzard was looking for software engineers capable of “creating a solid first-person engine for an yet-to-be-announced project.”
Fans speculate about first-person Diablo action
There are already many fan theories about what this could be about. Some players hope for a revival of the former “StarCraft: Ghost”, but that is likely history with the Nova missions. Other fans hope for an action game in the Diablo universe, and still others wish that Blizzard develops a single-player shooter for Overwatch.
Whether any of these theories is true is questionable. It is also uncertain whether Blizzard is working on just one new project or already has more hot irons in the fire. The earliest possible date for an announcement would likely be GamesCom or BlizzCon this year. However, looking back at the development times of other Blizzard games, it could take several more years before more is known about the games. So let’s hope for a timely announcement – or a trustworthy leak that satisfies our curiosity.
The “secret project” will probably not be StarCraft Remastered – that is also coming out soon.
