While Blizzard is very much focussed on its big money-makers like its various Warcraft games, from WoW to Hearthstone to Warcraft Rumble, as well as Diablo and the much-maligned Overwatch 2, he's still open to StarCraft making a comeback. That said, RTS fans shouldn't get their hopes up. While the series might return, that doesn't necessarily mean it will be an RTS, and whatever shape it takes will depend on the person or team who goes to bat for it.
"It's not me saying, 'Go make a StarCraft game,'" Ybarra told Bloomberg. "I need to have someone who has the vision and passion that comes with the idea, and I'll bet on that team."
A vision and passion he - according to his own words - clearly does not have. 😑
WTF does "dead genre" mean? There are still people that love it and play it and want more.
The people shouting at blizzcon aren't yelling because they need a new model and voice lines for protoss units, they are doing it because they want another RTS
StarCraft hasn't seen any significant development since 2015. There aren't many other competitors in the RTS space since about that time, as well.
C&C hasn't had anything since 2010. AoE's last major entry was in 2021 and had a pretty weak reception. I can't think of the last RTS that actually sold well and has large adoption besides SC2.
It's a very niche genre these days, and few developers are willing to make them in today's climate of looters, extractions, and battle royales. RTS games just simply aren't making the waves they used to anymore.
Ye, and Stormgate and Zero Space don't exist, and people aren't excited for either, am I rite?
And the new Total Annihilation game!
This thread is literally the first time I've heard of either of those.
Then you don't follow RTS news at all. Stormgate is made by ex blizzard employees that made Starcraft. Zero Space is made by Starcraft pros and modders. Zero Space got funded incredibly well through kickstarter. Both of these are a return to Warcraft 3 / Starcraft 2 type of gameplay and a lot of people are waiting for their release.
Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Civilization, Total War… Not all necessarily "real time", but still very much in the grand strategy mold.
How about Pikmin 4?