5 Blizzard Games We Almost Got (And Why They Were Never Made)

As one of gaming’s biggest companies, Blizzard has released plenty of AAA games over the years that have dominated their genres. The likes of StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch have become synonymous with their respective genres, while long-running franchises like Diablo have underscored the strength of the brand. However, not every project Blizzard has approached has worked out.

As with any major publisher, Blizzard has had plenty of games in development that never actually ended up seeing the light of day. While the development cycle of some (like StarCraft: Ghost) is in-depth enough to deserve its own thorough breakdown, others still deserve to be noted for their unrecognized potential. Here are five major Blizzard games that were never formally released, and why fans never got to play them.

Blizzard’s Star Wars

Although the game was never formally announced, Blizzard’s attempt to make a Star Wars game remains one of the most intriguing “could have beens” in the history of the publisher. As described in the book Play Nice, the studio spent some time developing an adaptation of Star Wars, even though they lacked the approval of LucasArts. It all started after the cancellation of their Sid Meier’s Civilization-inspired title, Shattered Nations, when Blizzard’s then-president Allen Adham told the team they would be working on an RTS set within the Star Wars universe.

The company spent a few months working on the project, with concept art developed of some notable Star Wars vehicles like the AT-AT. LucasArts ultimately didn’t go for the idea, and the project in that form was shut down. However, Blizzard didn’t let that development go to waste. The studio removed all the Star Wars imagery and elements from their concept but kept the gameplay ideas and general sci-fi concept, which eventually led to the development of StarCraft.

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans was going to be a big tonal swing for the franchise. The title was intended to be a more story-driven game, shifting gears from the RTS-style of the series up to that point towards a point-and-click adventure in the vein of Monkey Island. Lord of the Clans was meant to expand on the story of Thrall, an orc from the Warcraft series who has gradually become one of the franchise’s most important figures.

The game spent a year and a half in active development, with a budget of well over $100,000 spent along the way. However, Blizzard was concerned internally that the game just wasn’t landing like they wanted, and feared releasing a sub-par title. Play Nice describes the game’s puzzles as clunky and notes that the team was frustrated by the art style. After deciding the title couldn’t be salvaged, the game was ultimately shut down. Thrall’s story would be later told in tie-in novels as well as the 2016 movie adaptation of Warcraft. An early alpha-build of the title was also eventually leaked, giving some curious fans an idea of what the game could have been.

Project Hades

Meant to be the follow-up to Diablo 3, Project Hades would have been a big reinvention of the franchise. Seeking to do something different with the series following the lengthy and troubled development of Diablo 3, Project Hades would have been a third-person action title with a greater emphasis on combat. It would have even included permadeath, with a rougelike element where defeated characters would pass their achieved attributes to newly created characters.

Taking inspiration from Dark Souls and Batman: Arkham Asylum, Project Hades quickly felt like something entirely different from Hades. What doomed the game was the inability of the team to fully integrate the combat system with multiplayer, a key element of Diablo’s appeal. After the development lead on Project Hades left Blizzard, the game was scrapped, and the company shifted the franchise back to the formula for Diablo 4.

Titan

World of Warcraft almost had a sister series in the form of Titan, but the superhero MMORPG fell apart. In 2007, several publishers were actively trying to unseat World of Warcraft as the king of the MMORPG genre, so Blizzard took a swing at making it themselves. The game would have been a fusion of a standard MMORPG with a life-sim, giving players the chance to play their heroes both in their secret identity during the day (when they could do jobs, make friends, and decorate their homes) before setting out under the cover of night to fight villains as a superhero.

Although the early gameplay models were reportedly fun, finding the right balance between the daytime/nighttime segments proved to be a surprisingly tricky challenge for the developer. The game spent several years in development, costing Blizzard $80 million before it was formally shut down. All those concepts didn’t go to waste, however — some elements of the superhero universe were reused by developers as part of the bedrock for a new team-based shooter game that eventually became Overwatch.

Odyssey

While Blizzard has increasingly entrenched itself in established IP, Odyssey would have been a fresh world from the developer. Beginning development in 2017, the game would have been a survival game where players could move through a fantastical realm that was mysteriously connected to the Earth. The concept would have included upwards of 100 to 200 players concurrently playing on the same map.

While early reactions to the game’s preview in 2022 were positive, the game suffered from internal struggles that it could never quite escape. Shifting from Unreal Engine to Blizzard’s Synapse system severely delayed development further. The fallout of Blizzard management’s sexual harassment scandal and the company being acquired by Microsoft in 2023 only lengthened the development. Despite hopes that Microsoft’s involvement could help finish the game, Odyssey was canceled as part of the company’s restructuring following its acquisition by the tech company.