Rumour: Blizzard Partnering With ARC Raiders Publisher Nexon to Revive StarCraft as a Shooter

StarCraft has been quiet for a long time. Over a decade, in fact. So when Korean outlet dnews published a report this week claiming Nexon has signed a content development agreement with Blizzard and begun building a team to work on a new StarCraft title, people paid attention.

And then, almost immediately, the whole thing got complicated.

Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who first revealed the existence of a Blizzard-internal StarCraft shooter in his book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, responded to the Korean report saying he had "no idea if this is true," and that if it is, it appears to be "unrelated to the StarCraft shooter that's in development at Blizzard by a Blizzard team."

So if both rumours hold water, there are potentially two separate StarCraft shooters in development at once. Which is either very exciting or a sign that nobody quite knows what they're doing with this franchise yet.

What the Rumour Actually Says

The report, published by The Korea Economic Daily, states that Nexon signed a content development agreement with Blizzard last year and has since assembled a dedicated team within its shooter division. The project is reportedly being led by well-known StarCraft modder Choi Jun-ho, with new hires brought in specifically to support development.

The untitled project is said to have been started at Nexon's Shooting Division, which is in charge of the game Sudden Attack. The report suggests the StarCraft revival is being reborn as a first- or third-person shooter rather than a traditional real-time strategy game.

Nexon has officially declined to confirm these rumours, stating that it "cannot comment" on what the project they're working on with Blizzard Entertainment is at this time.

So: Korean insider sources say it's happening, Nexon won't comment, and Blizzard hasn't said a word. Take that for what it's worth.

This Isn't the First Time Blizzard Has Tried This

StarCraft shifting to a shooter isn't a new idea. It's more like a cursed tradition at this point.

Blizzard previously worked on a stealth-action title called StarCraft: Ghost, featuring the Terran covert operative Nova as the main protagonist. However, the launch of the Xbox 360 console and Blizzard's sudden success with World of Warcraft caused StarCraft: Ghost to be shelved in 2006, before being officially cancelled in 2014.

A second effort, codenamed StarCraft: Ares and reportedly described internally as "like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe," was scrapped in 2019 as resources were redirected toward Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2.

Two attempts. Both dead before launch. If this Nexon-led project is real, it would be at minimum the third serious push to get a StarCraft shooter out the door, and that history is hard to ignore.

The Blizzard-Internal Project Is a Separate Thing

Windows Central editor Jez Corden claims the "headline for BlizzCon 2026 is most likely going to be StarCraft," adding that "it was previously reported that StarCraft is getting the third-person shooter treatment, and I confirmed these rumours true via my own sources a while back."

The project is reportedly being helmed by Dan Hay, a significant figure who joined Blizzard in 2022 as a general manager and vice president. Hay previously worked at Ubisoft, joining in 2011 to work on Far Cry 3 and later becoming the executive producer for the entire Far Cry brand, shipping titles like Far Cry Blood Dragon and Far Cry 4.

Recent Blizzard job listings for vehicle engineers hint at vehicular combat, which fits neatly with StarCraft's dropships and tanks.

None of this is confirmed, but the breadcrumb trail is fairly long at this point. There's also the not-so-subtle moment from Tokyo Game Show 2024 where Xbox boss Phil Spencer showed up wearing a StarCraft t-shirt, which ignited speculation well before any of these reports surfaced.

Why Nexon Makes Sense Here

The collaboration with Nexon, a company that produced The First Berserker: Khazan and the acclaimed Dave the Diver, and which runs major online games like Sudden Attack and MapleStory, brings a different set of expertise to the table.

StarCraft is enormous in South Korea. It essentially built the country's esports scene in the late 90s and early 2000s, and professional players were genuine celebrities. Partnering with the biggest Korean games publisher to revive that IP in the region isn't a random choice. It's a deliberate one.

One of the main questions surrounding this new shooter is how it will differentiate itself from Overwatch, Blizzard's other futuristic multiplayer shooter. The challenge will be to carve out a unique identity for a StarCraft shooter that allows it to coexist alongside Overwatch without cannibalising its player base.

That's a fair concern. Two Blizzard-adjacent sci-fi shooters, one already established, would need to be genuinely different in feel and structure to avoid stepping on each other's toes.

BlizzCon 2026 Looms Large

BlizzCon 2026 is set to take place on September 12-13, 2026, and StarCraft fans have already noticed the franchise was absent from Blizzard's recent series of showcase events for World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Diablo.

That absence is telling. Or at least, it's being read that way. If Blizzard is saving StarCraft for a big BlizzCon reveal, keeping it off the early 2026 showcase schedule would make sense.

For now, nothing is confirmed. Blizzard has stayed completely silent, and Nexon has done the same. History urges caution. Until something is formally unveiled, even a well-funded build order can still be cancelled before completion.

StarCraft deserves better than two more cancellations. Whether it gets that depends on what Blizzard and Nexon are actually building, and whether either of them is willing to talk about it before September.