The Tokyo Game Show. 2002. Less than two years prior, Blizzard gave Huebner and his team at Nihilistic Software the green light to start development on a new game.
The deal was, in many ways, an experiment. In working with Nihilistic, Blizzard gave a good amount of control over one of its major franchises to an external development studio, a rare move for the company.
Blizzard wanted to make a dent in the growing console market, and Nihilistic provided an opportunity to do that. The original Xbox was less than a year old, and the PlayStation 2 was dominating console sales. Nihilistic wanted to grab the players who preferred a couch to a PC. It was bold. It had to be.
In 1998, Blizzard made a mark on the industry with StarCraft, a real-time strategy title that topped PC sales charts and became a cornerstone for the professional game circuit. Nihilistic wanted to take that franchise and give players a fresh look at the game's world through the eyes of a popular character.
All that added up to StarCraft: Ghost.
Two years in, Huebner and his team were enjoying the fruits of their hard work. The entire staff — about a dozen at the time — had flown to the Tokyo Game Show, where playable versions of the game were available on the show floor. With StarCraft hot on the competitive gaming scene, Warcraft 3 just released a few months prior and World of Warcraft still years away, a console game featuring a new take on an existing universe allowed Blizzard to maintain its momentum.
"Tokyo was the high point," says Huebner.
Less than two years later, frustrations that had boiled beneath the surface came to a head. A conversation with Huebner and Blizzard in a conference room at E3 2004, mere feet away from crowds eagerly playing new levels, more or less marked the end of Nihilistic's work on the game.
The story of StarCraft: Ghost is a complicated one that spans two development studios, a buyout by Blizzard and declarations that, even though no work was being done on the game, it was never technically canceled. Polygon recently spoke with nine developers involved to look back at the project.
Really awesome stuff. It's really nuts when you think of Blizzard pre-WoW and post-WoW, its nuts how much they had to learn and grow in such a short period. This article reminds me of the recent interview by Rob Pardo where they had to say no to Icefrog because they were so focused on WoW.
But yeah, Starcraft Ghost's cancellation was a blow to me. Not only because I was looking forward to it, but i had become a huge fan of Metal Arms by Swingin' Ape Studios, which they bought. So I kinda felt like it was 2 cancellations in one.
On July 08 2016 05:48 LongShot27 wrote: Polygon...seriously....
I know they've had awful clicky baity, but they've also had some amazing pieces, like this one. I think we should applaud them when they do something awesome and tell a story that I know a lot of people want to know: what happened in development.
I have a second cousin that worked at Bliz at the time of Starcraft Ghost and D2 and he basically said the game was unsalvagebly terrible and riddled with glitches that made any alpha version near unplayable. Still would be interesting to see some of it come to light one day..
Holy god that looks shitty, btw you dont need the posture of a gorilla to be sneaky. You can actually stand up straight, I was so sad when it was cancelled but lets just all agree it was for the best.
Don't really think Blizzard at that time had to worry about image. They had what?, 4 of the top games in the world? I'm not sure about what happened or what ghost would have been, but even if it was a flop blizzard still would have been top dog. To me it looks like a mass effect with a blizzard storyline. Which could have been cool. As far as a multiplayer portion of it i have no idea.
I am a bit curious about which version this was, but my guess is that it is one by Swingin' Ape having the final touches. The identity crisis they talked so much about in the article is evident all over the video. Nova is essentially an agile marine in a slow, boring action game.
I am a bit curious about which version this was, but my guess is that it is one by Swingin' Ape having the final touches. The identity crisis they talked so much about in the article is evident all over the video. Nova is essentially an agile marine in a slow, boring action game.
I’d be curious myself. I’d need to watch the trailers again and I don’t think they showed a huge amount but what I remember was quite varied.
Doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to me to play as a ghost and not be if not primarily, then at least sizeably stealth-focused.
I feel like Starcraft Ghost as it looked leaked would've been boring. It'd be more awesome if you can play as all the different units: a hydralisk, a zealot, a mutalisk, a carrier, etc., with different combat systems and scales of battle.
A first person Starcraft game would be neat. There are tons of possibilities, sadly none will ever happen.
Like. - StarCraft Spacemarine - You move up the ranks in single player while doing all the awesome stuff like holding / raiding bases, rescuing civilians, going on covert missions etc. In multi player you could easily implement all the standard modes - StarCraft Kerrigan - Relive Sarah's epic story in a first person RPG. (I would kill for this game.) - StarCraft Zealot - First person action game. When you die, you are reborn as a dragoon and are only allowed to control your character with a steering wheel.
On February 18 2020 01:26 argonautdice wrote: I feel like Starcraft Ghost as it looked leaked would've been boring. It'd be more awesome if you can play as all the different units: a hydralisk, a zealot, a mutalisk, a carrier, etc., with different combat systems and scales of battle.
They were working towards something like that with the multiplayer, which had a mode featuring a TvZ conflict where the classes were represented by different units. There was also a TvT mode that featured ground and air vehicles.
On February 18 2020 01:26 argonautdice wrote: I feel like Starcraft Ghost as it looked leaked would've been boring. It'd be more awesome if you can play as all the different units: a hydralisk, a zealot, a mutalisk, a carrier, etc., with different combat systems and scales of battle.
I played starcraft ghost multiplayer for like 30 minutes or so during the world wide invitational in 2006. And it basically was that - a capture the flag mode team play fps where you controlled different starcraft units. I'm pretty certain marine hydra vulture mutalisk were all playable at that point.
And I thought it was fun, although not even close to being done, and not even close to balanced.
I'd love to see a Starcraft game of a different genre. But it would be a waste of time if it was anything like that leaked demo. I hope Blizzard gets back to focusing on quality games.
On February 17 2020 08:22 NoobSkills wrote: Don't really think Blizzard at that time had to worry about image. They had what?, 4 of the top games in the world? I'm not sure about what happened or what ghost would have been, but even if it was a flop blizzard still would have been top dog. To me it looks like a mass effect with a blizzard storyline. Which could have been cool. As far as a multiplayer portion of it i have no idea.
The reason blizzard back then had only top of the genre titles is exactly because they would not release a game if it didnt feel top quality. Starcraft ghost was just MEH, and was no where near as good as games such as halo or splinter cell, so they did not release, as it was not *Blizzard quality*.
Thats when blizzard was still the top dogs. Original WoW in 2004-2008 was probably Blizzards pinnacle. They had too much success that the big dogs baught them and then it became all about money over quality.
On February 18 2020 07:25 AirbladeOrange wrote: I'd love to see a Starcraft game of a different genre. But it would be a waste of time if it was anything like that leaked demo. I hope Blizzard gets back to focusing on quality games.
I agree. It is great to be able to tank push a MOBA lane in HoTS. I just want more OP units to crush other genres.
The only good thing to come out of Starcraft Ghost was the opening cinematic, which I admit was pretty badass at the time. It's even got a Goliath in it.
Pre-Activision Blizzard actually cared about quality. Ghost wasn't up to their standards, so they cancelled it even though it was nearly finished. Compare that to now where they release WC3: Reforged in a horribly broken and incomplete state.
On February 17 2020 14:17 Dillon1 wrote: I'd play the shite out of it if they made a modern 1st person starcraft game
cmon just picture being a hydralisk.
Or a zealot even.
Mission 1. Guide these probes to a nearby Nexus .. reward: Improved psiblades , or a charge ability XD
AvP already exists.
Most Starcraft units would be boring as hell to play with in an FPS/third person sense.
They have defined roles and abilities to fit the genre, which works in RTS but not if you were to make them playable in an action game.
Ghosts you could make a good stealth/action game with though, seems the game got caught in development hell though and didn’t push in a particular direction.
In that era a really good stealth game would have probably done really well, even without the Starcraft IP.
@Wombat, they could totally just have him peer around a corner with his psi-blades turned off... Wouldn't be that noisy, especially if the zerglings he's about to charge into with his 'squad' were busy eating someone or something...
You underestimate how good this could be...
Ghosts could be good since it'd be a more all-round shootergame, with cloak and emp, hell lots of tools to work with instead of just the RTS kits they get since in a real battlefield a ghost could pick up a marines gauss rifle and hose shite
Sniping - check Weapons to pick up -check decide to get into a goliath suit on certain levels to shoot some mutas. - awesome
On February 18 2020 01:26 argonautdice wrote: I feel like Starcraft Ghost as it looked leaked would've been boring. It'd be more awesome if you can play as all the different units: a hydralisk, a zealot, a mutalisk, a carrier, etc., with different combat systems and scales of battle.
They were working towards something like that with the multiplayer, which had a mode featuring a TvZ conflict where the classes were represented by different units. There was also a TvT mode that featured ground and air vehicles.
If you are looking for something like that, Natural Selection 2 is basically exactly that. (The TvZ part)
The player in the video has awful aim. Like it's his first time playing a FPS on a console bad.
Anyways, I wonder if that video is an prototype video or not. As a general concept the game looks interesting, being carried by the universe of starcraft. If it was near completion, that game is awful. It was the era of Halo and Halo 2. Other than the nicely modelled Nova character, graphically it looks terrible and the gameplay unappealing, like spending time searching bodies and the lack of enemies.
On February 19 2020 00:22 Dangermousecatdog wrote: The player in the video has awful aim. Like it's his first time playing a FPS on a console bad.
Anyways, I wonder if that video is an prototype video or not. As a general concept the game looks interesting, being carried by the universe of starcraft. If it was near completion, that game is awful. It was the era of Halo and Halo 2. Other than the nicely modelled Nova character, graphically it looks terrible and the gameplay unappealing, like spending time searching bodies and the lack of enemies.
The game wouldn't hold, it was going against Splinter Cell...
Looking back on that era (PlayStation 2, XBox, GameCube), StarCraft: Ghost would have been the Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus of Blizzard games. If it had decent music, some semblance of a story with some somewhat interesting characters, and cool cutscenes, it might have been decent at best but more likely just laughably awkward.
Some of the really big games of the mid-2000s wouldn't come until a few years after, but by the time Ghost was announced the world had already experienced Metal Gear Solid 3, Halo, Devil May Cry, Ratchet & Clank, Kingdom Hearts, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell, multiple Resident Evils and Silent Hills, and more and more games each year after that were better and better. In the same year it was announced that Ghost was cancelled (2006), games like Prey, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Kingdom Hearts 2, Twilight Princess, Lost Planet, and Gears of War would launch. The development had been in hell for a while, and it shows in the leaked version. The only game it would have been on the same level with was... Well, actually I don't think it would have even been as good (perhaps "interesting" is a better word) as Dirge of Cerberus.
I'd love to see a new take on a similar concept (not the same since the novelization and Nova Covert Ops exist), either in an isometric game that hybridizes StarCraft 2 and something like Invisible, Inc., or a third-person game ala Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell: Conviction. But with the directions the company is taking—and the apparent, final attempt at "closure" in Nova Covert Ops—I don't care to hold my breath for that. Even though there's an absolutely awesome version of this game in my mind, there are many more ideas out there that I'd much rather get excited about.
EPT
