Last year, when Blizzard announced (or should I say admitted) that they’re working on a new, huge project, many fans of the company’s franchises were hoping for a Starcraft 2 MMO to come out. A sort of World of Starcraft, which Blizzard had already wrapped up nicely in an April Fool’s joke a couple of years ago.

Strategy First

When Starcraft 2 was announced to be a strategy game, I admit, I was slightly disappointed, since I was hoping to quest around Aiur with a melee Protoss Zealot (the equivalent of a tank in World of Warcraft maybe?) or a long range Zerg Hydralisk (hunter powa!). Don’t get me wrong, I’m very anxious at the thought of playing a Starcraft strategy game once more, but the thought of being “down there” with the troops in an MMO was fascinating.

Hidden MMO

Still, there’s undoubtedly a new MMO bubbling up in the Blizzard labs, as their job offerings on the official website and on various listings mention that they need people for, and I quote “a next-gen MMO”. We also know that it’s definitely not going to be a World of Warcraft 2, because they only plan on enriching that particular franchise with expansion packs for the moment, as Blizzard devs have mentioned several times.

Which franchise?

The secrecy around the MMO project is unbelievably annoying, but if we were to guess, it’s either the Diablo or the Starcraft universe that’s set for the new MMO. I doubt that they’d risk starting a new franchise (and at that, start it straight with an MMO!) when they have these 2 great ones at hand.

Conclusion

Since Starcraft is coming out with a new strategy game, it would seem reasonable that Diablo would be the target for the next MMO, but as it is rumored in the gaming community, neither fans nor some Blizzard developers and community managers think that the Diablo universe is suitable for an MMO with a similar structure to World of Warcraft. You do the math and tell me what Blizzard is left to work with…