Earlier today, the Blizzard Entertainment website updated its Job section to include mention of a, "Top Secret MMO."
As soon as fan sites saw the hints, the speculation mill churned up and some obvious and not so obvious ideas of what the next MMO out of Blizzard may be.
Starcraft MMO
We may be witnessing the first stages of a new Starcraft MMO based on the previous approach Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Blizzard used Warcraft III and the expansion to tidy up the lore and certain plot lines so that the game could be adapted to fit an MMO environment and this could be what they are doing with the single player Starcraft II campaign. Rob Pardo revelealed back in August that Blizzard planned to return to the shelved Starcraft: Ghost so this could be a sign that we may get a console-based MMO.
Diablo MMO
At the end of Lords of Destruction, the award winning expansion to Diablo II, the gates of Hell were left wide open for demons to walk the Earth and so a Heaven vs. Hell no-holds-barred fight to the death isn't too far fetched an idea, surely? Diablo has been a franchise that has been untouched for almost as long as Starcraft was before the announcement of Starcraft II so we may see a Diablo relaunch in the MMO genre.
A Brand New Franchise
Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago, Blizzard hinted at a brand new IP to go along side their current titles. It is possible the new MMO may have nothing to do with Starcraft or Diablo and Mr. Metzen may be hard at work right now creating the base for another award-winning franchise to add to Blizzards diversity. Perhaps a new IP that is specifically designed for the MMO genre and not adapted from an existing genre is what Blizzard are planning?
Whatever it is, we should know by now that they are very careful with the way they handle publicity so the fact that these hints occurred on Hallowe'en may be full of purpose. After all, some of us have suspected that they have been working on a new MMO for a while so why did the Irvine-based game gods wait until now to start dropping the teasers?
We'll just have to wait and see...
