StarCraft looks fantastic, but I’m afraid of a second Anthem

The new StarCraft game looks really good. But so far, it’s really just one thing: a trailer. Anthem says hello.

The probably biggest new announcement at BlizzCon was the return to the StarCraft universe. A dark trailer was meant to capture the atmosphere that the shooter is supposed to convey later.

And yes, no question: The trailer was fantastic. It had exactly what I love about StarCraft. It displayed the Dominion’s propaganda, enticing recruits with the heroic promise of glory and duty, only to coldly and brutally shatter that image by showing a loyal Space Marine turned into a pool of blood and bones. But just take another look for yourself:

This is StarCraft as I love it.

Even when I look at the facts known so far, it sounds promising. We know from interviews at BlizzCon:

StarCraft takes place 70 years after the events of Legacy of the Void. So a lot of time has passed since Kerrigan killed Arcturus Mengsk and stopped the threat of the Xel’Naga.

• It will be an open-world shooter with multiple factions.
• It will primarily be a single-player experience – there is no information on multiplayer yet.
• The game is said to have a strong narrative focus.

For more on this, read with our colleagues at GamePro.

Yes, that sounds good so far. But there is one small, minimal, and almost negligible detail that makes me completely skeptical:

There was no gameplay of StarCraft to be seen.

As far as the public is concerned, the StarCraft shooter is currently exactly one thing: A pretty, brutal trailer.

Playable, but we see nothing

That’s what makes me skeptical. Because from the interviews, we also know that “the development is well advanced” and “the game is mostly playable”.

However, this contradicts the fact that we have seen no gameplay, and at the same time, we know that the release is still at least 3 ½ years, likely even 4 years away.

One must wonder: If almost everything is playable and development is well advanced: Why have we only seen a trailer? Why are there no graphics, no screenshots, no gameplay sections to see?

And if StarCraft is really that far along – why is the game still a damn 4 years away? After all, a development time of 4 years is often the time it takes for a AAA game to be fully created.

This makes me extremely skeptical. It inevitably evokes memories of Anthem, which went through a chaotic development and then died a very unglorious death.

We remember: Anthem released a trailer, and it was pure PR. Because the trailer was sold to fans back then as “this is what the game looks like now”, while the truth was: Many developers saw the trailer and realized for the first time what they were actually supposed to be developing.

Of course, I don’t want to accuse Blizzard of the same approach, but especially Anthem fans may be quite skeptical when there are so many contradictory statements. Because “well advanced” and “mostly playable” does conflict greatly with “we’ll see it in 2030”.

Therefore, the announcement of StarCraft is the only one at BlizzCon that leaves me very, very skeptical. Because in the back of my mind, I always think: There must be a reason why they make such contradictory statements and show no gameplay. If a game is mostly playable, the question remains: What are you doing for another 4 years? Or how do you see it? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

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This is not meant to diminish BlizzCon, which truly had many great announcements and represents a turnaround for some in Blizzard. Many believe that we will once again experience the old Blizzard but I see it differently: It’s not the old Blizzard, it’s Blizzard for the old.