During an interview with Wired celebrating the Age of Empires’ 25-year-old anniversary, Xbox chief Phil Spencer teased a possible revival of the classic StarCraft series.
The Xbox CEO seems to be already thinking about what the company can do with Blizzard’s vast collection of IPs. Earlier this week, Spencer confirmed that Microsoft doesn’t intend to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive.
In the interview, Spencer was asked about StarCraft’s future, given that Microsoft’s Blizzard acquisition gets approved. Although Spencer decided not to talk about any potential future plan for the game, he did appreciate StarCraft’s impact on the gaming industry. Expressing his love for the series, he talked about Blizzard’s heritage of RTS games. Phil also added,
I’m excited about getting to sit down with the teams at Activision and Blizzard and King to talk about back catalog and opportunities that we might have. So I will dodge the question other than to say it’s not something I can actively work on right now. But the thought of being able to think about what could happen with those franchises is pretty exciting to me, as somebody who spent a lot of hours playing those games
Microsoft’s recent announcement to bring games like Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires 4 to Xbox shows that the company is interested in introducing more RTS (real-time strategy) games to its console platform.
Developed by Blizzard Entertainment, StarCraft was released back in 1998. The game quickly became popular among gamers because of its sci-fi style gameplay and competitive scene. StarCraft arguably forged the way to modern-day e-sports.
Although we might not see any new StarCraft game released anytime soon, Spencer’s showing genuine excitement and talking about the game gives new hope to the franchise’s fans. Judging by Phil’s recent activities, it is safe to say that Microsoft feels quite confident about its Blizzard acquisition.