Blizzard's Unannounced ‘Epic’ Next-Gen Multiplayer Game

According to new job listings, Blizzard is revving up development on an unannounced game for PC and PS4 and Xbox One. It's described as a *multiplayer* game, and it features an *epic new world* and a *badass implementation of destruction*. Here's some quotes from the job listings...

–The Level Designer should have “experience building compelling multi-player gameplay spaces”, according to the listing, and requires somebody who has built “the most fun and memorable levels on shipped AAA titles for at least 3 years”. It also asks for applicants with “an unending passion” for “competitive multi-player games”. We think it’s safe to bet on some multiplayer.

-The Lead Character Artist position is highlighted as a priority by Blizzard, and reveals that the unannounced title will feature “epic hero moments” and a “new and exciting world” filled with “legions of characters”. It also has another nod to this being a next-gen title, requiring somebody with an “exceptional understanding of next generation asset creation pipelines and tools”

-The new game will feature some bad ass weaponry too. The listing for a 3D Weapons Artist says applicants will be creating “amazing creations with even more phenomenal war gear”, and states artists will work with gameplay designers to ensure “your badass implements of destruction play as good as they look”. Experience with “mechanical or vehicle modelling” is also requested.

What do you think it is?

via http://www.thirteen1.com/2014/05/05/blizzard-working-unannounced-epic-aaa-next-gen-multiplayer-title-job-listings-reveal-first-details/

Sounds to me like Blizzard is taking on DICE and Battlefield, one of the few games that delivers on the promises of its trailers. All that crazy shit really happens in-game, and then some. A Blizzard game that plays like it's presented in its render intro? Count me in!

Its possible this is just Project Titan or whatever they're calling it now days. They took it back to the drawing board a while ago after spending a few years at it.

It sounds like a TPSword CTF thing + Warcraft IV.

Red Faction?

@jesus_phish: What was Project Titan? Was it that mmo that people were talking about?

@blomakrans: Titan was supposed to be an MMO, would assume they didn't make it into a shooter but it could be something like Destiny. However there's still a decent chance it's something akin to an MMO and thus likely separate from this project.

HOTS console, you heard it here first.

@fredchuckdave: Interesting. Was it ever revealed what world it was set in? Sounds a bit like Starcraft.

@mb: Hazards of the Stagnant marketplace?

@blomakrans: Original Titan was probably in the Starcraft universe; you can kind of see the same sort of world-building going on in Wings of Liberty that was going on in Warcraft 3.

Red Faction Craft: Hammer on the Structures

Well, they're talking vehicles and guns and destruction. It really sounds a lot like Battlefield.

Maybe a 3rd person Battlefield-type of game, scope and scale-wise. Probably in the Starcraft universe.

sounds epic

World of StarCraft Tanks

Diablo War Ghosts

@fredchuckdave:

Titan was going to be a brand new IP.

Source (well, a wiki that links to multiple sources on the matter): http://www.diablowiki.net/Titan

Concur. Their WoW replacement has been in development since the end of Burning Crusade and still there is no more info about it other than what the project name was. I wouldn't be surprised if they are just trying to take all that wasted work and trying to rebrand it.

WoW2 I'm calling it.

Though secretly I'm hoping for Warcraft 4.

@vuud: I could get down with WoW2

@brg9000: Blizzard doesn't do new IPs. Except for Red Faction: Heralds of the Supernova

I actually think a WoW 2 would be kinda cool for some reason, but there is no reason at all for them to do that when they could just do whatever they want through a new expansion pack instead.

I know a lot of people will call me crazy, but I think a third person Diablo game would be really cool.

@steadyingmeat: The Diablo IP has taken a huge hit everywhere outside of China so it's probably not Diablo related.

@fredchuckdave said:

Right now, what do people think Blizzard is doing as a company, in general? They've got Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm to keep plucking away at, but I have no idea whether those are bringing in the kind of revenue Blizzard needs them to. Some depressed team in a corner of Blizzard is working on that final expansion for Starcraft II that almost no one is going to pay attention to because if that style of RTS wasn't dead already by 2010, LoL and Dota 2 have certainly killed it since. Kinda the same story for the next WoW expansion, though even with WoW past its prime, that will probably do well for them.

Project Titan and/or this mystery game from the job posting seem like they're still early in development, and a few years off. So between now and then, what does Blizzard put out? Starcraft II expansion, WoW expansion, and just keep pushing their two F2P games? Too soon for Diablo stuff, I don't even know what they do with Warcraft at this point aside from random projects like Hearthstone, and Starcraft is still finishing its current thing. Do they just have way more people on Heroes of the Storm than I think they do? That would seem super risky since no one has really had a massive hit in that genre other that Dota itself and LoL, though Blizzard has enough clout they could make a go at it.

I'm curious.....will it be free to play?

But I'm going out on a limb here and saying it's not a WoW type game and it's something new. GASP! LETS HAVE SOMETHING EXCITING PEOPLE!!! Rock n Roll racing returns but it's on NEXT GEN JET SKI, water physics, and lens flair orcs riding them.

@bisonhero: Hearthstone is extremely successful. WoW does well overseas even if it doesn't do great here; certainly performs well above profit margins. Heroes of the Storm is on track to do awfully at present, but I'm sure a few million dollar tournaments would change that. Diablo also does well in the East because they never had the RMAH. Starcraft II will have enough people buy it for it to be successful I imagine, but probably not by much (tons of super expensive cutscenes, not the 3d paper garbage from D3); but as long as the IP is still beloved if they release something else in the Starcraft universe it should do alright.

I really hope it's Starcraft Ghosts.

It's not important, this will either never come out.

Or it will be 8 years from now as something entirely different and you won't even remember this thread.

@fredchuckdave: I think the "3D paper garbage" from D3 looks quite nice...

You can't deny the truth.

@blomakrans: That's one cutscene, it is literally the only cutscene to come out with RoS; if you play Heart of the Swarm there's like 20 of them; each one costs at least a quarter million.

StarCraft: Ghost 2

So, when's SMITE?

I don't have a clue what it could be, but I certainly hope it lives up to all the badassery they boast.

@fredchuckdave said:

Aren't a lot of those cutscenes in-engine? I know the game has some rendered CG cutscenes (the intro to the campaign, stuff like when Kerrigan kills Narud and Warfield, the ending with Mengsk), but I thought there were maybe 8 or 9 of those at most, and they were pretty brief aside from the opening and ending ones (and that Narud one might've been a bit longer).

@bisonhero: That's still a lot more than 1, also the in-engine stuff is probably also quite expensive. Diablo 3 is entirely old graphics/engine but Starcraft II is a mix of the old one and the new one. For a game that sold half or less than half as much it certainly has a lot of effort/resources put into it by comparison.

Titan was scrapped, but they are taking all the stuff they wanted to do with that and moving it to a different project. They moved a lot of that team to already-existing things like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, while they are using this new hiring binge to get people together for this new thing.

So yes, parts of it are going to be Titan-esque, but it's a new game altogether.

@jakob187: To be clear we don't actually know if this is the Titan replacement or just random FPS/3PS insert.

<___<

>___>

I know nothing.

When I read "Unannounced" I suffered a weird brain fart in which I thought you were implying Blizzard had a game they announced previously but were now taking back the announcement. "We had announced this game but never mind!"

....either way my curiosity is peaked.

I'm more excited that this may be a whole new IP completely unrelated to their three tier franchises.

That's what a potential embargo breaker would say.

Come on, leak some internal memos for us!

Dood...

Between shit with Blizzard and shit with Google Fiber, I realize two things:

1. I need to not have friends working on/in line with top-secret things because IT KILLS ME TO KEEP SECRETS!

2. People are going to be STOKED! I'm stoked! Get stoked!

I actually wrote about five paragraphs worth of stuff in a message that was directed towards @fredchuckdave, then I said "man, I can't do it."

@jakob187: It better be Vagrant Starcraft Story Profile 3: Hrist Souls. But ehhhh it's a Blizzard announcement; that's like 5-6 years away.

I actually am reasonably excited for Legacy of the Void; I like playing Protoss.