Xbox chief wants to revive iconic ‘StarCraft’ series

Xbox chief Phil Spencer has said he wants to talk about reviving the iconic StarCraft series following Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Back in January, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in a deal worth a reported £50billion. Despite investigations into the merger by industry bodies, Microsoft are still “very, very confident” the deal will go ahead.

And Xbox chief Phil Spencer is already thinking about what he can do with Activision Blizzard’s large catalogue of IPs. Earlier this week, he confirmed it wasn’t Microsoft’s “intent” to make Call Of Duty a Xbox exclusive and in a new interview, Spencer has spoken about possibly reviving the iconic, groundbreaking StarCraft series.

The original StarCraft was released in 1998, while sequel StarCraft 2: Wings Of Liberty came in 2010, with standalone expansion Legacy Of The Void rounding off the saga in 2015. A remastered version of the original StarCraft was released in 2017.

Asked by Wired if Xbox had plans for StarCraft going forward, Spencer said: “The first thing I would say is, I’m not allowed to make any decisions about what happens at Blizzard or Activision or King. So this is all just kind of talking and thinking about what the opportunity is.”

He went on to discuss Blizzard’s “heritage of real-time strategy games” including World Of Warcraft before talking about how “StarCraft was a seminal moment in gaming. From an esports perspective, from real-time strategy on console perspective, and from just an real-time strategy storytelling perspective in the genre.”

He continued: “I’m excited about getting to sit down with the teams at Activision and Blizzard and King to talk about back catalogue 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.”

In other news, a total of five Ratchet And Clank games are due to join the PlayStation Plus Premium library, in celebration of the franchise’s 20th anniversary.