With many websites now reporting the new codename for Blizzard third project as Hydra, people have begun speculating exactly what this new title will be. The speculation is going to get worse, so before random illogical ideas appear, I shall look at this new title and what we might be expecting from Blizzard in the next decade.

Now, it is good to note that Blizzard announced three projects are in development but not that they would announce all three titles this year. This was a claim that began somewhere and snowballed out of control. This has created expectations from Blizzards dedicated player base and this is something Blizzard try their hardest to avoid. So far, Blizzard have announced two out of three of these projects, these titles being:

-World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
-StarCraft 2

It is also worthy to note that Blizzard employees, such as Mr. Paul Sams, have hinted at other titles being explored in the future, these titles being:

-Warcraft 4
-StarCraft: Ghost
-Diablo 3
-A Next-Gen MMO
-A New Franchise

So what we have here is seven possible titles to come from Blizzard in the next decade or two. Warcraft 4 will happen. Warcraft is the game credit as popularising the RTS genre along with Command and Conquer so Blizzard will explore this title more in the coming years aided by the fact that we have had very few massively popular RTS games in the last few years and that Warcraft is probably the single biggest gaming franchise of all time. Diablo 3 seems to be a sketchy subject. Diablo fans want it more than anything else in the world and with the fear that Warcraft has become Blizzards pet RPG title, Blizzard would do well to announce something in the next coming years otherwise they may have a massive exodus on their hands with developers such a Flagship producing Diablo-like games. Interestingly, Flagship contains 13-17 ex-Diablo developers so it isn’t a surprise that they are rolling out Diablo-like titles such as Mythos.

StarCraft: Ghost was a fun one for all of us. Announced and then cancelled, this is one of the only titles Blizzard have publicly announced and then axed in quick succession. Despite this however, certain important figures have said that returning to SC: Ghost is a viable option and is in serious consideration and with Blizzard advertising for people with console development experience, it isn’t alien to think that Blizzard might revisit this title in some way, even if it is just to assess the mistakes they made.

Now there is the rumour of a new franchise being developed by Blizzard and I can see why. Blizzard milked Warcraft and the lore is becoming too complex for new players to follow. Diablo looks like it is on hiatus for the time being due to issues we don’t know about and Starcraft is entering the milking phase right now so a new franchise would lend itself to Blizzard quite well. In fact, I think they know that we know that they need a new franchise in the next decade otherwise they’ll have no motion by 2020.

So, how do these titles related to Project Hydra? Well firstly, we don’t know that it is a new game. It was a conversation overheard at a convention. For all we know it could be a reference to a new unit in Starcraft or a new boss in World of Warcraft. This however, seems to be destroyed simply by the fact that Blizzards recent codename convention has been to use the names of mythical creature, such as Medusa. So there’s the apparent link between codenames. Many speculated that Medusa has a connection with a similar character from StarCraft and that is why Blizzard used that name for the working title. However, Medusa also has note worthy links to the Diablo and Warcraft franchises, namely that both contain Medusa-like figures. There is no point in speculating why Blizzard chose Medusa now because StarCraft 2 has been announced, but Hydra deserves speculation. What we have to remember is that Blizzard never does anything on a whim so it is likely that Hydra was chosen for a very good reason and we will never fully understand what that reasoning is.

Firstly, what is a Hydra? Well, a Hydra is several things and if you look on wikipedia, any one of the main uses could be used in reference to a particular Blizzard franchise:

-Lernaean Hydra (a mythological many-headed serpent)
-Hydra (the largest of the modern star constellations)
-Hydra (the third moon of Pluto)

Those from what I can tell are the three most obvious definitions. I did discover something interesting however. Hydra has a link to the Warhammer 40,000 universe in so much as there is a unit called the Hydra Flak Tank although this is probably irrelevant to this discussion and Blizzard probably had no idea.

The word Hydra itself does have obvious connections with both StarCraft and Warcraft. In StarCraft there is a unit called the Hydralisk and in Warcraft there are many Hydra-like monsters and several bosses, such as Hydross the Unstable that take their names from the word Hydra.

So the first meaning is a mythological many-headed serpent. When you chop one of these many-heads off, another two grow in its place. It lives in water and eats just about anything it can…erm…get its heads on. Scary stuff.

Hydra is also the single largest constellation of stars in modern times and also the name of a supercluster of galaxies. It’s also a moon that orbits an ex-planet, now a planetoid. I know – I don’t get NASA either. Why can’t Blizzard just pick transparent project titles and make this a hell of a lot easier for us? Well that would be because they are noobs. Yes. Noobs. I’m not going to bore you with the reasons these link so well with Blizzard franchise because that would poison your own expectations and I suspect you can see the readily obvious links yourself. In short, every single project that has ever been hinted at or explored by Blizzard has obvious links with Project Hydra in some way or another (excluding the fact that it is a Blizzard project).

We have to admit right here that taking this Project name into account when speculating what it is that is behind this title is a little far fetched. It’s difficult to extract any form of noticeable lead any of Blizzards franchises has when linked to this title. We can however, look at Blizzards track record when it comes to developing titles and we can look at what games have come out of Blizzard or been announced by Blizzard recently.

Firstly, the most obvious title to come out of Blizzard in recent history is World of Warcraft.

We know from content patches and the two expansions that development of this title is ongoing and we can safely expect to see a couple of expansions left before there is a decline in development. World of Warcraft isn’t in question when it comes to development. It’s just a case of when and what. Starcraft 2 has been announced and if any other Blizzard game is to go by, an expansion will come out for this game inevitably but that won’t be announced so soon after the announcement of the base game.

It seems that the only franchise Blizzard haven’t touched on recently is the Diablo franchise but there was a 10 year gap between StarCraft and StarCraft 2 so Diablo could be anything up to 3 years away. We know that Blizzard will continue to develop MMOs from their job advertisements and we know that the team behind Diablo and Diablo 2 is hiring actively. So we know that an MMO and we can assume that Diablo 3, are in development. Could these two be related? Possibly. Diablo is an established RPG franchise and the ending of Lord of Destruction leaves the possibility of Diablo becoming an MMO very real. Many argue that this would be competition for World of Warcraft but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you are playing World of Warcraft or another MMO by Blizzard – they still get your money. In fact, many Diablo fans still play Diablo and not WoW so if anything, having a Diablo MMO would serve only to increase Blizzards profits. Diablo is also a much darker and mature game than Warcraft so it would be pitched at a slightly different audience. I personally don’t see Blizzard making a none-persistent, single player RPG again due to the fact that they can make more money from MMORPGs.

My own opinion is with a Diablo MMO being the next title to come out of Blizzard and that Project Hydra is this Diablo MMO. That’s just my opinion based on my own speculation however. A StarCraft MMO is a very real possibility as well based on the way Blizzard used Warcraft 3 to set up the premise for World of Warcraft. StarCraft 2 could simply establish a back-story for StarCraft to go MMO. This however, would most likely disenfranchise the StarCraft fan base that for the most part sees StarCraft as a competitive RTS game and not a casual gamers franchise.

It is unlikely that Hydra has anything to do with Warcraft so I’m going to rule that one out personally. I’m more inclined to go with a Diablo MMO or possibly a StarCraft MMO over any Warcraft related title. I’m even more inclined to go with a Diablo MMO than a StarCraft MMO. The production time of an MMO title is around 10 years and we know that Blizzard have been working on this MMO since WoW shipped and the Diablo team have been hiring for roughly the same amount of time. It’s odd however that the two teams have been hiring separately. There is also the possibility that this has something to do with the mobile platforms and consoles that Blizzard have been looking at developing for since StarCraft: Ghost, so it could simply be a renewal of the SC: Ghost project. Blizzard have yet to announce their Direct X 10, Vista only game and it is inevitable that they will do so in the next 3-5 years. Seeing StarCraft: Ghost was supposed to be their entry into the X-Box 360 market; this could be their Vista only title we are talking about.

So what I have done here is spent the last hour or so concluding that I can’t come to a total conclusion. I’ve pretty much ruled out Warcraft but that is just one small cog in the Blizzard machine and there are many more cogs out there. This isn’t a complete failure however. We know that Blizzard want us to come to a conclusion so they can revel and giggle at their staff meetings about how the gaming industry doesn’t know the gaming industry so I feel I’ve taken Blizzard hype generator and turned it into a confusion generator – in your face Blizzard. Some Blizzard employee will read this and giggle at what I am saying – I have no doubt that is happening. All I have to say is that if you are smart, you’ll develop something gamers want as a pose to something you want. That said, Blizzard claims you are all gamers and notably most of you are ex-EverQuest freaks these days.

Again, my head turns to Blizzard. We shall have to wait for a little more to be put out before we can come to any solid conclusion but at the moment, it looks like this one might be in the Diablo or StarCraft camps.