According to a recent job listing, Blizzard is cooking up a new game in an engine and a genre that none of its releases have used before. The studio is looking for a “Lead Designer, Innovation” to run development on a “AAA open-world shooter” without a name.
Right now, every Blizzard game except Hearthstone (made with Unity) were made with in-house engines, but this unnamed shooter will likely use Unreal Engine. The listing says the lead designer will need experience working with the popular engine for prototyping features.
Article continues below
On Bluesky, Blizzard game designer Jeff Hamilton says the “fairly unique design role” will be part of his team, but his post sadly provides no clues on what the project even is—and neither does his LinkedIn page. My best guess is the new Starcraft third-person shooter mentioned in Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier’s 2024 book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment.
Now before you get too excited, let’s remember that Blizzard also spent six years on a survival game only to cancel it after a massive round of layoffs in 2024. It’s possible this game—much like the infamous Starcraft: Ghost shooter that never was—might not see the light of day, especially when the videogame industry layoffs haven’t really slowed down.
