Starcraft 2 Shelved?!

After spending years developing the game and holding a closed beta for months, Blizzard announced it was canceling development of Starcraft 2. Multiple reasons were given, including poor feedback from fans in the closed beta, but most surprising was a lack of funds.

From Blizzard’s press release:

Blizzard Entertainment announced today that the closed beta test for its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™, has ended. Thousands of gamers around the world received invitations from the company to participate in the first phase of the beta test in February. “Gathering concentrated feedback from our players was an important step for us as we headed into the final stretch of development for StarCraft II and the new Battle.net service,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “In polishing the overall experience and preparing for launch, we found that it was not going to be possible to release the game at a sufficiently high quality.”

…

“Even if we believed we would be able to satisfy fans of the original game, we frankly could not afford to continue work on StarCraft II. After years of false starts, to find that the game in its current form would have to be scrapped, it would be irresponsible to start anew.”

It seems that the project isn’t being outright canceled, but if Blizzard is putting it on indefinite hold, it sounds like bad news for players who have been looking forward to revisiting the fight between the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg.

What do you think about Blizzard’s news? Now will you go back to playing the original StarCraft with me, or are you still going to go on and on about how cool you are for getting into the private beta? Whatever.

(Photo: Zerg Scourge| CC BY 2.0)