StarCraft Officially Returns In 2030, Blizzard Confirms at BlizzCon

Sep 12, 2026 - 22:14

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StarCraft Officially Returns In 2030, Blizzard Confirms at BlizzCon

Published Sep 12, 2026, 1:55 PM EDT

Blizzard confirms a new, very different StarCraft game at BlizzCon

StarCraft is coming back, but not in the way that many longtime fans of the real-time strategy game series would expect. In 2030, Blizzard plans to release StarCraft, an open-world shooter that completely reimagines what the classic franchise can look like.

The new StarCraft was revealed during the opening ceremony at BlizzCon 2026 following lots of rumors and a tease on the franchise’s official website. Blizzard is keeping the details on this one pretty scarce still, but its cinematic reveal trailer highlighted a soldier training, suiting up, getting dropped on an alien planet, and fighting. Unfortunately, his gun runs out of ammo and he is killed within moments, showing just how brutal this universe is.

While we haven’t seen gameplay just yet, Blizzard is teasing that this game is an “open-world shooter,” which is a kind of game the company has never made before. We also still don’t know whether it’ll be played from a third-person or first-person perspective. It’ll likely be some time before we find more details about this out too, as the game currently has a far off release window.

Blizzard started teasing its new StarCraft game earlier this month on the franchise's official website. Messages hidden in the website's code indicated that the next game in the 28-year-old franchise would be set about 70 years after the events of StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void.

StarCraft a long way out, but it at least gives fans of the sci-fi franchise something new to look forward to. This sci-fi series is one of the franchises that put Blizzard on the map prior to World of Warcraft, and it became particularly popular in Asia. While StarCraft 2 got post-launch support for years after its launch in 2010, we haven't gotten a StarCraft release this monumental since 2016’s Nova Covert Ops DLC.

The shift from real-time strategy game to open-world shooter is a significant one, so it’ll be interesting to see how the community and players respond to StarCraft when the franchise makes its grand return in 2030.

The StarCraft franchise debuted in March 1998 with the release of Blizzard's original sci-fi RTS. An expansion, StarCraft: Brood War, followed in December. It took Blizzard another 12 years to deliver a sequel, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. The sequel received two expansions: 2013's Heart of the Swarm and 2015's Legacy of the Void. The StarCraft brand has been largely dormant since 2017, when Blizzard released StarCraft: Remastered. Blizzard has attempted multiple spinoff projects over the years, including the infamous third-person shooter StarCraft: Ghost and a shooter codenamed "Ares."