We don’t know much about the upcoming game from Frost Giant Studios, but the team’s sights are high. One of the co-founders, Tim Morten, former production lead on Blizzard’s StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, says the RTS game will build on what’s come before.
“We very much want to build a game that feels like an evolution of Blizzard RTS games,” Morten told Op Attack, “but our influences will include Warcraft III, Broodwar, and StarCraft II. We expect to be as different as those games are to each other.” Frost Giant was founded by Morten and Tim Campbell, who was campaign lead designer on Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne.
Frost Giant announced it had received an initial wave of funding in October 2020, allowing for early development of the group’s prospective debut. More is needed, however, though Morten’s unsure if that’ll mean crowdfunding. “We haven’t considered paths for pre-release player funding yet, because we’re so early in our process,” He says. “Separate from funding, we’re very committed to having discourse with the community throughout our development. This is currently happening through the FrostGiant subreddit, and through the monthly newsletter that anyone can sign up to receive at FrostGiant.com.”
When Frost Giant revealed itself in October, Morten stated the intention is for whatever the game becomes to be something that players “can share broadly with friends.” Current funds are going towards building a prototype.
Blizzard’s own recent endeavours in the RTS space haven’t been strong of late; Warcraft 3: Reforged was slated by players for missing features. Our Richard Scott-Jones wrote that “it’s off to the worst possible start” for a robust remake of a classic. However, the community has been remaking it themselves to fulfill the need. The company is slowing down on StarCraft 2, after ten years, to focus on “what’s next.”