Blizzard Entertainment is one of those game developers that is in a unique position. They are best known for their reliable stable of intellectual properties. Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo are all well known and practically household names whose gaming life has exceeded most games by a long shot. So when a new project code named “Titan” was leaked onto the net, it caused a lot of waves and speculation. Blizzard, if you can forgive my analogy, is a lot like Ferrari, or some other super car manufacturer. The name of their game is to take their 3 or 4 models and tweak them and shine them up and maintain their status or place in gaming It’s not about a new model every year, it’s about maintaining their status at the top. World of Warcraft is the gold standard of which MMORPG’s compare themselves. Starcraft is still one of the most successful RTS series of all time. We didn’t know much about Project: Titan, but the simple fact it was something new from Blizzard was by itself a huge deal.
Well that huge deal is off apparently.
Reports started yesterday based on an article from Polygon stating that Project Titan – after seven long years in development – has been cancelled. We know very, very little about just what Blizz had in store for us other than it was a sci-fi, near future, post apocalyptic sort of thing. Mike Morhaime, CEO and Blizzard co-founder in it’s interview with Polygon said,
We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs… So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn’t come together.”
Chris Metzen, vice president and the guy in charge of story and franchise development, was also interviewed and eluded to the fact that at the end of the day, they want to be proud of the thing that they put out and are more concerned about living up to fans expectations of them rather than coming out with a game just to come out with a game. Metzen said:
“I think the lesson that comes around again is just making damn sure that the things we commit to do and the things we burn calories on and the things we commit to our community that we will do are coming from a place of focus and inspiration,”
Like Warcraft Adventures and Starcraft:Ghost before it, we now will never know just what Titan could have been. In my own opinion, the premise of the game and it’s concept sound very familiar to the current Bungie game: Destiny – a sci-fi MMO style game (basically) with guns which is suffering from a little critical backlash since it’s recent release. Maybe Activision (who is part of Blizzard now) stepped in and said that it was too close to Destiny ultimately and wouldn’t be well received. Maybe it was the success of smaller games like Hearthstone that sent the message that Blizzard doesn’t have to go big to deliver quality stuff that the fans are going to appreciate. Next up for Blizzard is the arena brawler game “Heroes of the Storm” and also it’s next expansion to the World of Warcraft game with “Warlords of Draenor“.
Do you think Blizzard is making the right move? Is admitting something isn’t working and might never work make Blizzard that much better of a company for scrapping it instead of just spitting it out anyways?
[button type=”link” link=”http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/23/6833953/blizzard-cancels-titan-next-gen-mmo-pc” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Polygon[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
