2007's worst kept gaming secrets

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We knew they were happening. The industry said we were wrong. But we weren't.

Starcraft 2 is finally unveiled

The run up to the announcement of a sequel to Blizzard’s 1998 RTS was the slowest builder on this list (Five years, no less), but by the time the inertia really gathered this year the rumor was moving fast enough to blast through the side of an elephant. While the developer’s other ‘craft has spun out into many a sequel and expansion over the years, World Of Warcraft being possibly the most planet conquering game around these days, the much-loved Starcraft had only earned a handful of expansion packs and an aborted action game previously to this year.

In 2002 talk of a sequel had been quickly quashed by Blizzard, but the rumour-mill was given new fuel in 2006 when the company issued a job advertisement requesting a game balancer who had “Played Warcraft 3 and/or StarCraft competitively”. At that year’s Leipzig Games Convention, Blizzard CEO Paul Sams also told IGN that “there is no doubt that we will continue the StarCraft and Diablo franchise, and trust me, I will be the happiest person in the world when we announce StarCraft 2.” He added that a major announcement was on the way in 2007. And yes, that was a “when” you saw just then, not an “if”. The rumour-mill accelerator nudged a little closer to the ground.

Then in May Blizzard put a timeline up on its site detailing the history of its main game releases, lighting up another one every day in the run up to its World Wide Invitational event in, yes, Korea. There was a big question mark at the end of the timeline, but by that point it may as well have been a big flashing “!”. With “Starcraft 2” preceding it. The game was announced at the event as expected and is now very much on the way. If it hadn’t been, Blizzard’s HQ would now be a smoking hole populated only by victorious yet angry Koreans.

David Houghton
David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.