What happened
On 29 October Blizzard’s careers site moved a listing for the game back to the top of its StarCraft results: Associate Tech Director, World Systems, requisition R028070, based in Irvine. [A]
It is not a new job. The requisition was created on 2 September, and the listing’s own data says it was posted on 13 September, the day after the reveal. The 29 October date is a re-listing. Blizzard has opened no new role on the game since the senior materials artist on 7 October. [A] [B]
We report it because the listing says two things about the game that no announcement has, and because it is the only thing Blizzard has published about the game since 20 October.
What the listing asks for
The role leads the team that builds the game’s world systems. In the listing’s words, that means establishing “World Systems vision and development roadmap” and helping gameplay and content teams create “an interesting, complex, and challenging world”. [A] It opens with the line every listing for this game uses: “We are here to make StarCraft, and it’s about damn time.”
Two of the three “extra points” are about the game’s technology rather than the candidate’s character:
- “Experience working with Unreal Engine”
- “Shipping games on multiple platforms, including consoles”
That makes three listings for this game that mention Unreal Engine. The other two, for a senior materials artist and a voice-over designer, went up in October. [B] [C] And it is the second to talk about consoles: the lead UI engineer’s listing names “PC, Xbox, and PlayStation” among the platforms its work must support. [D]
What it does not establish
An “extra point” is a wish about a candidate’s background. It is not a description of the product. A studio can want people who know Unreal for reasons that have nothing to do with the engine it ships on, and “consoles” names no console. So the engine is still unannounced, and the platform list is still Xbox, plus Blizzard’s statement that the game is not exclusive.
What has changed is the weight on one side. One listing asking for Unreal could be a recruiter’s habit. Three, across art, audio and engineering, look more like a team that works in it. We still file that as a pattern in the hiring, not as an engine announcement.
The rest of the week
Blizzard published nothing else about the game between 21 and 30 October: no news post, no interview, no footage and no platform statement. The three October listings we cite elsewhere are still open. [B] [C] [D]
A few of the September listings can no longer be opened at the source, which usually means a role has been filled. Blizzard does not say, so we do not count them.
Our sourced overview keeps the engine and the platforms in its table of open questions. That is where they stay.
Change history
- First published version. The listing was read at the source on 30 October; its posting dates are the ones Blizzard’s careers site records for it.
Read and released by a named editor before publication. This is a report on a published document or a recorded statement, quoted from the source cited. We have no access to the unreleased game, and nothing here describes firsthand play.