He called the sci-fi RTS "a seminal moment in gaming."
Phil Spencer hasn’t been shy about the possibility of resurrecting Activision-Blizzard’s old library of games if the acquisition goes through. One of those may possibly be beloved RTS StarCraft, something which Spencer seems pretty excited about.
The Xbox boss sat down with Wired to talk about Age of Empire’s 25th anniversary, and the series’ foray onto console—which has also meant controller support and crossplay integration for us PC players. When asked about bringing back Activision-Blizzard’s own RTS series, Spencer expressed interest in doing so. He acknowledged how much the game meant to people and what it did for the genre, calling it a “seminal moment in gaming.”
“Not only StarCraft, but WarCraft, when you think about the heritage of RTS games that we’re talking about here, specifically from Blizzard,” he said. “And I don’t have any concrete plans today because I can’t really get in and work with the teams. But StarCraft was a seminal moment in gaming, right?”
(Image credit: Blizzard)
Spencer clarified that he couldn’t really put definites on anything yet, but said he is “excited about getting to sit down with the teams and Activision and Blizzard and King to talk about back catalogue and opportunities that we might have.”
He continued: “It’s not something I can actively work on right now. But the thought of being able to think about what could happen with those franchises is pretty exciting to me, as somebody who has spent a lot of hours playing those games.”
So looks we can officially add StarCraft to the list of ‘games Phil Spencer wants to bring back’. The way Spencer’s talking you would think that this is a long-dormant franchise, but Starcraft II released in three parts over 2010-2015 and still supports an esports scene, albeit not being anywhere near as big as it was. There was also Starcraft Remastered in 2017 and, while Blizzard’s never talked specifically about the future of the series, it’s always seemed inevitable that a Starcraft 3 would happen at some point.
This kind of spitballing has been par for the course ever since Microsoft announced the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Earlier this year, Spencer expressed interest in a handful of other Activision-Blizzard games, saying he wanted to bring back the ones he loved as a child. He specifically mentioned King’s Quest, Guitar Hero and Hexen—I certainly wouldn’t be mad at seeing some of these making a comeback. It’s nice to see Spencer talking about games that aren’t just Call of Duty, though that’s not to say he hasn’t bickered with PlayStation’s Jim Ryan over it.
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