A new batch of games have been announced for Game Pass in May, including five that are playable on PC. There are siblings, felines, reapers, and a Croft. I'm struggling to identify a theme.
24.04.2024 - 21:24 / gamerant.com / Mike Ybarra / Matthew Schomer
Blizzard is currently seeking job applicants for multiple high-level positions related to the creation of an unspecified, unannounced game. The job postings don't reveal much at all about what Blizzard's next big project might be, but the fact that the company is hiring shows that it has something new in the works for its fans.
Acquired in October 2023 by Microsoft after a legal battle that lasted well over a year, Blizzard has a solid history when it comes to building successful game franchises and series. While possibly best known for the Diablo action RPG series – which it launched back in 1997 and which had its most recent release in 2023 with the open-world Diablo 4 – Blizzard has also put forth popular strategy series like Warcraft and StarCraft, and it heads up current major live service title Overwatch 2 and MMORPG World of Warcraft.
The official Blizzard careers page, as reported by Shacknews, currently shows 72 available jobs, some of which are tied to specific games and others that are related to business services like finance and law. Of the 43 job listings that are tied to one specific game or series, a dozen are marked for an «Unannounced Game,» including major positions like creative director, narrative director, and senior art director, along with several other director and designer positions. This news comes just four months after Microsoft announced major layoffs including huge cuts at Activision Blizzard that included then-Blizzard president Mike Ybarra.
Not much can be gleaned by browsing through the 12 job postings to try to determine the nature of the unannounced game. While job postings can often be a source for unintended leaks that inadvertently herald the specifics of a game's announcement ahead of schedule (like with Santa Monica Studios' apparent upcoming God of War game), Blizzard seems to have kept this one pretty airtight. However, based on some of the job titles and their descriptions, it can be inferred that Blizzard intends that the game will feature fun and challenging combat, locations that «weave excellent storytelling with satisfying gameplay,» and high-quality visuals.
There are also a few job postings on Blizzard's career page that don't specify a specific project at all, though diving into their contents, they are either tied to the Diablo franchise or intended to work with multiple brands. It's not clear whether this unannounced game would fall into one of Blizzard's existing IPs or be something new entirely, but it seems as though the recent layoffs at Blizzard following the acquisition by Microsoft aren't going to stop Blizzard from pushing forward with new projects.
A new batch of games have been announced for Game Pass in May, including five that are playable on PC. There are siblings, felines, reapers, and a Croft. I'm struggling to identify a theme.
Every month brings new games to the Xbox Game Pass service, with the regularly changing roster in Microsoft's subscription offering plenty of titles for different types of players to enjoy. These can be titles from long-running franchises, indie gems, or titles from Microsoft's first-party studios which are added at no extra cost upon their launch, making Game Pass one of the better deals in gaming.
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