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StarCraft: Ghost

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StarCraft: Ghost
The StarCraft: Ghost subseries logo.
Developer(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Nihilistic
Swingin' Ape
Publisher(s)Blizzard Entertainment
SeriesStarCraft series
Platform(s)Next-gen consoles
ReleaseIndefinitely postponed
Genre(s)Third-person shooter
Mode(s)Single player, Multiplayer

StarCraft: Ghost was a planned tactical action game for video game consoles developed by Blizzard Entertainment and set in the same science fiction milieu as its popular StarCraft title. Blizzard announced the game in 2002, but on March 24, 2006 announced it would "indefinitely postpone" development.[1] Soon afterward, Blizzard removed StarCraft: Ghost from its list of games currently under development, and deleted the official Ghost home page; the URL for that page now redirects to Blizzard's web site.[2] As of now, its status is in question, and many fans and analysts, including gaming websites such as IGN, are predicting that it has been cancelled.

Blizzard, a game developer mostly known for computer games, took a step in a different direction by producing Ghost exclusively for the Gamecube, Xbox and PlayStation 2 video game consoles. Instead, they have now chosen to reorient themselves on the seventh generation consoles. Earlier, a GameCube version was also planned, but it was already canceled in November 2005. Many in the gaming community were under the assumption that the game was being developed by Blizzard when it has in fact been a third-party project since its inception, starting with Nihilistic and officially moved over to Swingin' Ape Studios in July 2004. On May 16, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment acquired Swingin' Ape Studios, and in March 2006 (last mentioned on the website on March 30, 2006) they announced that StarCraft: Ghost was on indefinite hold. These major changes in development process are an example of development hell. On June 28, 2007, Blizzard's Rob Pardo stated that he would like to complete the game someday.[3]

Storyline

Storyline has not been realesed. There are some videos explaining it.

Trouble with development

Release has been postponed six times. Game development started in mid-2001, with a release date of winter 2002-2003. During the summer of 2002, the entire Nihilistic Software development team, the original developer of the game, quit en masse after an internal power struggle with Blizzard. At the time, Slashdot and Penny Arcade reported that the team had already completed more than 85% of the game engine and 40% of all level design.

Following the resignations, Blizzard pushed back the release date of the game to January of 2003, only to push it back to "early summer 2003" in October of 2002. Blizzard went out on the market to look for a new development team, while reassuring their customers that there was nothing to worry about, that Nihilistic Software had merely finished the job they were hired for, that there were no power struggles inside the company and that the game would be delivered on time.

By Christmas 3456, they had found their new development team, but they pushed the date even further backwards to "second quarter of 2004".

The game was announced at E3 2005 (and later the date was pushed to September 2005), and the web page was updated for the first time in a year. Blizzard Entertainment also acquired Swingin' Ape Studios as part of a console-dominating strategy. Swingin' Ape Studios canceled the GameCube version in order to concentrate more on the Xbox and PS2 version, citing a lack of online support. These announcements seemed to have improved fan opinion of the game, but pushed the release date even further back to 2006.

In late March 2006, Blizzard Entertainment announced that the game has been "indefinitely postponed" for the PS2 and Xbox.

Although no further word has come on Starcraft Ghost's status, in November 2006, a new Blizzard novel, StarCraft Ghost: Nova [1], written by Keith R. A. DeCandido, was quietly published. This has led to speculation that Blizzard is taking the same route with StarCraft: Ghost that was taken with Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, which was canceled in 1998, only to have its story released as a novel, Warcraft: Lord of the Clans, written by Christie Golden.

In 2007, a trailer for Starcraft Ghost was featured on the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade special edition DVD which came with the Burning Crusade collectors edition pack.

At Blizzcon in 2007, Chris Metzen hinted that terrazine gas, spectres and Nova may appear in StarCraft II. Metzen explained that Ghost had an excellent storyline and a good villain, and that the story may be told in future novels. [4]

Media

Press Coverage

References

  1. ^ Blizzard Postpones StarCraft: Ghost Indefinitely, GameSpy March 24, 2006 (retrieved March 25, 2006)
  2. ^ Web site
  3. ^ http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/28/1857245 Games.slashdot.org
  4. ^ "Transcript of Blizzcon Q&A Sessions". StarCraft Legacy. Retrieved 2007-08-15.
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