The Blizzard headquarters (Blizzard Entertainment)
Warcraft 4 is probably never happening, but far more games than that have been cancelled by Blizzard over the years, including a Call Of Duty real-time strategy title.
Previously unknown details about Activision Blizzard have been pouring out all week, as industry insider Jason Schreier promotes his upcoming book about the company.
Schreier recently revealed that there is a StarCraft shooter in the works, and also talked about the ridiculous ambitions of former CEO Bobby Kotick, who wanted a new Guitar Hero launch every month.
The revelations keep coming though, as the insider has given new details about a huge list of cancelled Blizzard games, and why Warcraft 4 is unlikely to happen any time soon.
Why doesn’t Blizzard make RTS anymore?
In an interview with YouTube channel MinnMax, one of the hosts went through a long list of cancelled or rumoured Blizzard games, while Schreier gave his input about what he knows about them.
After Schreier had also added other titles he knew about, and which had been axed, the list grew to a total of 17.
The most interesting ones included a Call Of Duty real-time strategy game, a Star Wars project that eventually transformed into Starcraft, and a project that was in development for two years that was basically Minecraft but in the Warcraft universe.
Now imagine Minecraft in the Warcraft universe (Mojang Studios)
Schreier said that when production director on Starcraft 2, Tim Morten, realised that Blizzard wasn’t going to do more content for it, he pitched ‘all sort of ideas’ for a new real-time strategy game.
‘Including at one point, I think out of desperation, he was like, ‘Hey, I want to make a RTS so badly we can do it on Call Of Duty if that’s what it’ll take to do this thing.’
Schreier revealed that the reason Blizzard didn’t greenlight another real-time strategy game during that time was partly because the executives had ‘lost faith’ in the genre.
He also mentioned an ‘opportunity’ Blizzard had to do a Star Wars game, but said that the CEO of LucasArts told him he didn’t remember such a thing. Schreier also said that the project got to the point of concepting AT-ATs ‘in Blizzard isometric form’, but didn’t go much further.
All 17 cancelled or rumoured Blizzard games:
Bloodlines – space vampire game
Licensed Star Wars game (that eventually led to Starcraft)
Shattered Nations
Diablo for the GameBoy
Starblo – sci-fi Diablo
Nomad – post apocalyptic turn based game in development before World of Warcraft
Avalon – Minecraft-style Warcraft game in development during 2013-2015
Hades – original version of Diablo IV with a third person camera, arkham style combat, dark tone and permadeath
Orbit – Warcraft Pokemon GO
Odyssey – survival game
Orion – mobile RPG with asynchronous turns
4X Starcraft game
Call of Duty RTS game
Helldivers 1-style Warcraft game
Andromeda – God Of War-like Warcraft game
Battlefield-like Starcraft first person shooter
World of Warcraft mobile game with NetEase
Schreier also mentioned a previously unknown, cancelled game called Avalon, which was essentially Warcraft and Minecraft put together, and described to him as ‘incredibly fun …read more
Source:: Metro
