Simu Liu’s Request For More StarCraft Gets Response From Blizzard Manager

Head of Blizzard Mike Ybarra responded to a recent tweet from prominent actor Simu Liu about StarCraft, possibly hinting at something new for the franchise. A lot has changed since the release of StarCraft 2 in 2010, including the fact that many of Blizzard’s senior staff have moved on since then. This means the future of the series is currently clouded with uncertainty, though there is still hope that StarCraft 3 will arrive, at least in some form. But regardless of what happens next, twelve years is a long time for fans to wait and still be uncertain.

In 2020 Blizzard announced that they would no longer be developing new content for StarCraft 2, but since then there have been no announcements regarding a new game in the series. While real-time strategy games might not be as common as they once were, there are still plenty of great reasons to play StarCraft 2, from the still very popular competitive esports scene to the fact that it became free to play in 2017.

On Twitter, in response to a tweet from the star of Marvel’s Shang Chi, Simu Liu, Blizzard manager Mike Ybarra gave the vaguest hint that something more might be in the works for StarCraft. Liu simply tweeted, in all caps, “PLEASE SAVE STARCRAFT,” with a gif attached of a Protoss character from the game. While Ybarra only replied with a smiley face, his response and position within Blizzard could hint towards the future of the franchise.

Many StarCraft fans replied to Ybarra’s tweet encouraging him to continue the beloved franchise. Since October 2020 some fans have laid their hopes at the feet of an independent developer made up of ex-Blizzard developers Tim Campbell and Tim Morton, who are known for working on the StarCraft and Warcraft franchises. Plus, with the amount of ex-StarCraft staff that have joined them, the hope is still strong. This sly tweet from Ybarra could be the first sign of life from Blizzard and StarCraft in a few years.

Blizzard headlines have been dominated lately by the Microsoft acquisition. There are plenty of reasons that Microsoft should and shouldn’t have acquired Blizzard, but it does also spark hope for the future of popular franchises like StarCraft. This small interaction on Twitter certainly doesn’t prove anything, but at the very least it shows that the leadership at Blizzard has the franchise in mind. There’s no telling how long it will be before Blizzard makes any announcements about the future of StarCraft, or if it even will, so it is best to keep hopes tempered. On the other hand, the aforementioned Frost Giant Studios is well into the development of a new RTS game, and this project will likely come to fruition well before whatever future StarCraft project might be in the works.

Source: Mike Ybarra/Twitter

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