With Blizzard appealing to fans of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch, in particular at BlizzCon 2023, some StarCraft fans are feeling left out.
BlizzCon 2023 is a celebration of all things Blizzard Entertainment. Or, at least, most things. While this year’s Opening Ceremony acknowledged much of Blizzard’s playerbase, one core group of players was left wondering if they’ve simply been forgotten.
The Opening Ceremony’s cinematic began with a focus on the likes of World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Hearthstone, and even an attempt to push the new mobile game, Warcraft Rumble.
President of Blizzard Entertainment Mike Ybarra was the first to take the stage, and he immediately called on fans of different Blizzard games to make their voices heard. After getting responses from the “heroes of Overwatch, adventures of Sanctuary, and defenders of Azeroth” in the crowd, one fan, seemingly feeling left out, shouted, “What about StarCraft?”
Fans were quick to address the lack of StarCraft mentions on the game’s subreddit with memes suggesting that Blizzard has completely forgotten about the franchise.
“The guy literally mentions 3 out of the 4 big Blizzard franchises and pretends the last one doesn’t even exist,” one player wrote. “Sad times.”
Others were more critical in a post titled, “Blizzcon doesn’t feel the same without Starcraft,” in which a player explained that while WoW, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Diablo have taken center stage, Starcraft, Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm were “completely forgotten and abandoned.”
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However, all hope might not be lost for Starcraft fans as Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer briefly mentioned StarCraft shortly after appearing on-stage.
“Throughout Blizzard’s history, they’ve pioneered and refined so much across the gaming industry, and many of you here today have been a part of that journey,” Spencer said after appearing on stage. “Think of Diablo – it propelled the action RPG genre forward. StarCraft spawned the foundation for what esports would eventually become, and StarCraft 2 was a major catalyst for the evolution of games as live entertainment.”
Just the mere mention of the franchise was enough for some players. “When Phil Spencer mentioned Starcraft, it got a louder crowd reaction than Diablo and Overwatch. There’s still some hope left out there,” one fan noted.
But one Redditor followed up on the community’s reaction to BlizzCon with a comment suggesting that fans shouldn’t have really expected any StarCraft news this year anyway.
“I don’t know why you guys do this to yourselves. They haven’t mentioned anything about Starcraft in years I don’t know what made you think they were going to surprise everybody with news this year. Don’t you think if they had an announcement about Starcraft for the event they’d tell us they had an announcement about Starcraft before the event?”
While there was nothing for StarCraft fans at BlizzCon 2023, who knows what could be in store in 2024?
