Claim: StarCraft 2 at May 19th

A new South Korean source claims that, according to a leak, Blizzard will be announcing StarCraft 2 at the World Wide Invitational, on the 19th of May 2007.

According to a post at Thisisgame.com, Blizzard will announce the sequel for StarCraft in the home land of StarCraft: South Korea. The World Wide Invitational (WWI) is a Blizzard event where top gamers are invited to play Blizzard's games, and that's where the announcement is claimed to be.

Blizzard's strategy for announcing new games have traditionally been by surprising the crowd at one of the major game events. According to Thisisgame, over 100 international media partners have been invited to the World Wide Invitational, and to the possible announcement of a sequel.

Here's the English version, freely translated, of the original source at Thisisgame.com:

Starcraft 2 will be announced to the public on May 19th at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitation (WWI).

On April 25th, according to the game company Blizzard Korea Entertainment, it is confirmed that they will announce Starcraft 2 demonstrating it with both videos and images. Furthermore, the developers of Starcraft 2 will be there, and have time to answer the questions.

Starcraft 2 is being developed in 3D and there will be new race and some specific changes to remaining races. Details of only minor parts will be released at WWI.

Blizzard invited more than a hundred of broadcasting teams from around the world for this announcement. Prior to this very secret moment on May 19th, they will not release any information.

However, from the people who previously worked with Blizzard, there is trusted word about this information. A person who recently retired from Blizzard said there is development of Starcraft 2 and there will be an announcement.

The chairman of Blizzard Korea said “we cannot answer anything about Starcraft 2, we will have a new game on 19th so please come and find out”. He refused to answer if new game is Starcraft 2.

The shout caster “Um Jae Kyung” said “I expect it to be very balanced but have concerns regarding E-Sports, but I doubt there will be changes about E-sports in regards to Starcraft I. However, there will be most likely be another league for Starcraft II and e-sports will be much bigger. Since I’m one of the gamers, I’m very excited about this”.

The 3rd WWI will be on May 19th ~ 20th in Seoul, and it seems there will be a lot taking place.

No smoke without a fire

Whether or not these claims are true will be difficult to confirm because of the nature of the source (anonymous leak). Over the years there have been much said about the sequel - Blizzard has repeatedly mentioned that they have always been interested in "revisiting the StarCraft world". However, only recently has there been an increasing number of leaks regarding Starcraft 2, all hinting that it is indeed coming out soon. Here's the recent history:

December 2006: An 'Unannounced project' was what Chris Sigaty, Lead Producer of WarCraft 3 (and its expansion), said he was working with when GosuGamers met up with Blizzard in our recent interview called » When Blizzard started talking. He would not comment further on what project it was.

8th January 2007, GosuGamers » reported about a claim that StarCraft 2 would be announced early 2007. That source also leaked a lot of other unconfirmed information to the gaming community, much which have turned out to be true.

Only days later, 16th January 2007, at the launch of the Burning Crusade, » a Blizzard representative made further, and this time public, hints about StarCraft II.

9th April 2007, sources at FighterForum (» translated at TeamLiquid) claimed that information about a new race and 3D graphics being included in StarCraft 2 had leaked from the company and that a beta would be out by the end of 2007. It only contained claims for a new "Kerrigan" race and that the original units of StarCraft would be included in the sequel, but with a modification.

Thanks to Nal_CrayOn for help with translation. GosuGamers wish to remind our visitors the the source of this news is only claiming to have information about an announcement - there has been no official word from Blizzard as of now.