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StarCraft: Ghost -- See The Leaked Footage Of Blizzard's Unfinished Third-Person Shooter

A Ghost from Blizzard's past returns.

25 Comments

StarCraft: Ghost was originally planned as an Xbox/PS2/GameCube spin-off, a new third-person shooter entry in the StarCraft series. The game was never finished, though, and was only ever seen or played during E3--although it was available on the show floor during some years, little footage exists. Now, for the first time, footage of the game has appeared online.

First spotted by Kotaku, a playable test build of StarCraft: Ghost, stored on an Xbox dev kit, has leaked online. Footage from the game is emerging, showing what the full game would have looked and played like, had it ever released. A video [UPDATE: it's been taken down] was posted earlier showing off-screen gameplay that includes footage of the dev kit menu that the build is being accessed from.

This next footage shows the game upscaled to 720P, and is direct capture footage. The only build available is very much a work-in-progress--it looks like aiming is quite wonky, but it's also the clearest look many of us have ever had at how the game played. It's likely that more footage will surface now that this build has surfaced.

In 2013, Blizzard employee Matthew Burger argued that StarCraft: Ghost had never truly been "cancelled," and that instead it was "on hold". However, the game disappeared after E3 2005 and seems unlikely to ever come back--in 2014 it made our list of Missing in Action games, only one of which (The Last Guardian) has since released.

The game was being developed by the now-defunct Nihilistic Software, alongside Swingin' Ape Studios, which was eventually bought out by and integrated into Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard currently has several projects in the works, including Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. No upcoming new Starcraft projects have been announced.

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archav3n

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thankully this was shelved

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naomha1

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I remember jonesing so hard on this game hoping it would eventually get released. Looks like it would have been amazingly dull at the point the game is at right now. Granted, textures were not implemented, gunplay and aiming is off kilter and we haven't seen much beyond what has been shown either. Still, I'd love to see this get resurrected now. With the technology jumping forward a good 2 gens now and PC GPU cards are wicked amazing with ray tracing, etc, this game could do well in the hands of, say, a developer like Arkane or Gunfire Games. I'm not sure that Blizzard could really make a first person stealth action game work. They're amazing developers and talented out the wazoo but they've never done that kind of game before that worked. Everything they've touched has turned to gold but it is all strategic multiplayer or RPG/rpg-mmo type games. Still, they may have the ability to make it. One day. Maybe.

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jinzo9988

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Edited By jinzo9988

It looks really stale and uninteresting. I think the biggest challenge ahead of them was actually making it feel like a StarCraft game or at least a game that takes place in its universe... this looks like a mediocre third person shooter that someone modded to put StarCraft characters into it. You went from commanding like 200 units ransacking enemy bases to like 1 or 2 zerglings at a time that hop around like rabbits. I'm not sure there was any way around it if you're theming it around a Ghost unit... it would've had to have been a major stealth game. At least if you themed it around Marines and you had a squad with you, you could bombard the player's unit with a ton of enemies, you could maybe pause gameplay and go to a tactical view to command the individual units around the field and it would've felt more like a StarCraft game that way.

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nintendians

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it'll be great if they make and update the game to be release on pc, "switch", ps4, ps5, xbox one and xbox series x.

just give it to 3arc or one of the "call of duty" developers, if they're not busy making a "call of duty" game since activision own blizzard as of now.

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DereksDontRun

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Edited By DereksDontRun

Talk about a blast from the past. I totally forgot about this game. I don’t think that I had any gray hair back then. Very long time ago.

But seriously, why show us this now. Like 16 years later? I still think it’s weird that they never released it.

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GamerOuTLaWzz

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Damn I was hoping we would get to see her take out a Hydralisk but sadly nope, only zerglings and a couple infested terrans.

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Seymour47

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Edited By Seymour47

I know it's a console FPS, but can we just take a moment to talk about the potato aim of the person playing this?

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mogan

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mogan  Moderator

@Seymour47: I'll bet the stick sensitivity is super F'd in that unfinished build, with little to no options to adjust them. I can't imagine anybody having that hard a time aiming, but still be able to otherwise look like they were controlling the character normally.

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Seymour47

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@mogan: You're probably right, but it still makes me feel a little better about my own dismal FPS skills. Heh heh heh.

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mogan

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mogan  Moderator

I always thought the little bits they showed of Ghost looked pretty cool. And, for an OG Xbox game, that clip looked good too. Shame this got canned.

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attirex

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Fail. Will wait for reviews and then bargain bin purchase sometime next year.

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santinegrete

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Metal Arms dev was purchased to help to create this. I miss not only a chance of what this game could have been, but also what the dev could have made. And I always wanted a more visceral Starcraft experience.

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phili878

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Edited By phili878

Blizzard back in the day had zero fps and third person experience .They should have continued later with it. So many Starcraft players, game would have been a major success although in the clip Kerrigan appeared to be way less effective than a regular Marine.

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jbreez00

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When I first got the game informer with starcraft ghost on it back in 04, I was actually pretty excited for the game, then it got cancelled and the closest thing J ever got to it was gears of war. I'm still a bit upset blizzard keeps throwing Easter eggs for Nova in their games like they plan to make the game, but I'd prefer it if they just killed the whole dead for good with the way they are now.

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Xylymphydyte

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"leaked"

I'm sure they're just trying to distract from yet another horrendous greed-powered controversy.

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idakooz

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I get it's an early build but man that looks like crap. Probably a good thing Blizzard scrapped the project.

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lostn

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Edited By lostn

@idakooz: it was a PS2/GC/XB game intended to release 15+ years ago. What more were you expecting? That would have looked pretty good at the time for the hardware it was running on.

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lonewolf1044

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@lostn: Agree

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bluestorm83

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Ah. I see. This is like when an ex, who started out great, but then got lost in drug use and gambling and, I don't know, satanism, comes out of the woods years later. And she's like, "Hey, remember when we were 15? We were so cute together, look at these pictures of us. Can't we be like that again? Also, I need a couple hundred bucks for opium, and the horse races, and skulls for the ritual."

I miss the old Blizzard, who would work hard for half a decade, decide it wasn't good enough, and start over 100%. New Blizzard will sit around for four years, release a barely-reskinned remaster, and break your old toys. Hard Pass. It's sad, but Blizzard isn't the girl she used to be.

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attirex

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@bluestorm83: Rofl. It's exactly like that.

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Salmonlips

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Given their current form, Blizz might package up what they have and sell it as a remaster.

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illegal_peanut

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@salmonlips said:

Given their current form, Blizz might package up what they have and sell it as a remaster.

See what you did there. I See it, and I like it.

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