StarCraft is coming back, and it’s not the strategy game you remember

Blizzard’s next StarCraft game will be an original open-world shooter and it’s coming spring 2030.

Revealed at BlizzCon 2026’s opening ceremony, it marks the first new standalone StarCraft game in around a decade.

Dan Hay, who previously worked as lead producer on Ubisoft’s Far Cry series before joining Blizzard, introduced the project, calling it “something new – an open-world shooter where every step is earned. Not from above, but down on the ground, in the mud, in the fire”.

“There’s only one thing we can say: it’s about damn time,” Blizzard teases on its website.

The announcement was accompanied by a brilliantly grim cinematic teaser rather than gameplay, following a Terran recruit called Holt whose deployment ends violently within moments of touching down on the Zerg-infested battlefield. Though not confirmed, it sounds as though Arcturus Mengsk is broadcasting throughout the trailer.

“The sons and daughters of the Dominion answered the call when mankind needed them most. Their courage held the line. Their sacrifice bought us another day. Now the call comes to you. Carry their strength forward. No matter the cost,” says the description accompanying the three-minute trailer.

Beyond that details are thin, although interestingly, only an Xbox logo is on the “returns 2030” screen, suggesting Xbox is sticking to its word of keeping its biggest games Xbox-exclusive.

In the same opening ceremony, of course, we learned about Diablo 5, the next mainline entry in the series expected to arrive in spring 2029, and confirmation that an animated Diablo series is in development at Netflix. For more, here’s everything announced in the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony.