Blizzard: Warcraft 4 or Other New RTS Games "Depends On the Players"

At Blizzcon this weekend Blizzard announced that the next chapter for the Starcraft story will be a series of episodic adventures due out next year, but what about the next entry in the developer's other big RTS franchise, Warcraft? Earlier this year, Blizzard said in an interview that Starcraft 3 or Warcraft 4 could still happen. But as Starcraft II lead developer Tim Morten clarified in an interview with GameSpot this weekend, that largely depends on what the series' fans say they want.

"I can tell you that, today, our focus is 100% on this content that we've announced here at the show. What the future holds really depends so much on what we hear back from players. We love RTS, we love this genre. The StarCraft universe is fantastic; the Warcraft universe clearly has more stories that can be told. There are new Blizzard IPs; there's the potential to make completely new stories altogether. We want to hear back from our players what they would be excited about, but as a team, we've just been so busy finishing Legacy of the Void and teeing up this new content that we haven't had a chance to make any decisions."

As to why they decided to pursue episodic content instead of a full sequel or a new trilogy, he explained, "The single biggest factor was the messaging that we've gotten from players that they don't want the story to end. They really enjoy playing campaign style content and that they would like to see more of it from us. I think secondarily, but also important, is that the team is so excited about continuing to produce this kind of content. And Nova really is such a fan-favorite character and so intriguing in terms of the 'ghost' abilities that she possesses; she seemed like a great place to start this kind of storytelling experimentation.'

As to how the content will be delivered, Morten clarified that the game will have three acts with three missions each. "At the end of that, we'll be interested to see how player response is and if players feel like we should build more content like that. Or are they looking for a new, full game; what is it that they want to see out of StarCraft and out of RTS? But we really feel like this is a compelling way to explore new stories now that the storyline of the main characters is wrapping up. It's an opportunity for us to interact with our audience in a way that's more frequent than we ever have before."

If you purchase Legacy of the Void, will that include Nova Covert Ops content? Morten said, "This content won't be ready until next year. So Legacy of the Void will exist as its own game, and this content will be delivered as we build it over the course of 2016."

As for the potential cost, Morten said, "There is a version of StarCraft called Starter Edition that's freely available to players. Our plan is to make this post-launch content available to anyone who has any version of StarCraft, including Starter Edition."

For now, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is due out for PC on November 10. What the future holds for the series after that remains to be written. For even more news from Blizzcon 2015, check out our wrap up of news, trailers, and impressions.