Rumor: New Blizzard MMO to be Starcraft Online?
This is a bit of a long-shot, given the source, but we felt it was worth passing along anyway. A report out of Beijing has surfaced indicating that Blizzard's next foray into the MMO space will indeed be the oft-rumored Starcraft Online. Citing an anonymous industry insider, it was reported in Caijing magazine that Chinese game operator Netease will be the Chinese partner responsible for the distribution of Starcraft Online on the mainland. Netease CEO Ding Lei refused to confirm the rumor, but didn't deny it either. It's nothing official, but it's certainly plausible that the existence of the Blizzard new game would be leaked via a back-door channel like this.
Blizzard's unnamed "next-gen" MMO has been known to be in existence for some time now. Originally discovered visa vie the wording in a few job listings on Blizzard's careers page, the project was later confirmed by a mod on the World of Warcraft forums. It's been the fodder for many a discussion between the Massively staff, including a prominent appearance in Ask Massively. For my part, I speculated that the new Blizzard property would be an expansion of the Diablo series in part 2 of the Top 10 MIA MMOs of 2007. And just last week, our own Akela Talamasca speculated about how exactly an MMO set in the Starcraft universe would work, if at all.
Is this source completely reliable? Maybe. Is it right? Maybe. Are we going to stop until we've found the answer? Hells no!
[Via Gamesindustry.biz]
