World of Warcraft. Diablo. StarCraft. Overwatch. Hearthstone. The response that Blizzard inspires from players might have shifted over the years, but it certainly still bears an incredible weight. Responsible for many of the best PC games of all time, the developer’s reach can be felt across the industry in both its own projects and those it has inspired. Now, not long past the cancellation of its mysterious survival game, it appears that a new Blizzard game is on the cards.
As Diablo 4 prepares to enter its fourth season and World of Warcraft is busy putting its pieces in place ahead of its next expansion, The War Within, the development giant has eyes on another addition to its roster of upcoming PC games. The Blizzard careers page currently lists a sizable number of jobs for an ‘unannounced game,’ which the company itself describes in the postings as “Blizzard’s next great game.”
It looks like this might be an all-new project, then, rather than the fabled StarCraft 3 or World of Warcraft 2. Along with a creative director role, other notable positions on the table (as spotted by Wowhead) include a narrative director, a senior art director, a senior concept artist, a principal gameplay engineer, a principal animator, a principal combat designer, and design directors for both missions and combat AI.
All of those are pretty standard roles to fill, although the presence of both missions and combat AI suggests that we’re likely to see at least some focus on PvE. In the combat listings, Blizzard mentions a desire to ensure that “monsters will be interesting, memorable, and challenging, from the initial threats all the way to legendary boss encounters players will talk about for decades.”
It also mentions “working hand in hand with level design to ensure the levels support the needs of combat and enemy placement,” while the mission director is asked to “effectively guide players and create memorable moments,” suggesting something a little more intentionally structured in its format. A Blizzard soulslike game, perhaps? For now, that guess is merely hopeful speculation on my part; we’ll just have to wait and see what comes of this.
It’s worth noting of course that this is still the very early stages, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see the fruits of any labor here for several years to come – if at all. Most recently, Blizzard’s unannounced survival game was canceled after an estimated six years in development, following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, which itself has just overseen the closure of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks alongside two other studios in a push to focus on “high-impact” games.
Conversely, while the ambitious Blizzard MMO known as Titan was canceled after seven years of development, large pieces of the development work ended up giving us Overwatch. It’s possible that we might see something similar come out of the work on Blizzard’s survival game, although for now any such ideas are little more than pure speculation. Nevertheless, Blizzard remains one of the most storied developers on the planet, and any new project from them is certain to draw interest.
For the immediate future, here’s the latest on Diablo 4 Season 4, which is set to start on Tuesday May 14, along with everything you need to know about the WoW The War Within release date, plans, story, and more.
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