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Blizzard’s long-rumored ‘Project Titan’ MMO is canceled, game details emerge

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UPDATE: There’s a whole bunch of information now on exactly what Titan was, compliments of Kotaku’s discussions with anonymous sources, some or all of whom are ex-Blizzard employees. It was meant to be a massively multiplayer game split between two very distinct styles of play. Check out original report for details.

ORIGINAL POST: After seven years of eagerly-consumed rumors, Blizzard has officially canceled its next-generation massively multiplayer game, Titan, which the studio confirmed in an interview with Polygon.

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Titan joins the ranks of Warcraft Adventures and StarCraft Ghost as projects that Blizzard axed mid-development when things weren’t clicking. “We didn’t find the fun,” explained CEO Mike Morhaime. “We didn’t find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that’s the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no.”

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Senior vice president of story and franchise development Chris Metzen cited a careful reevaluation of the company’s identity. In the wake of World of Warcraft‘s record-breaking success, there was a “sense of inertia and obligation” to devote the studio’sresources toward a second MMORPG. That success also afforded them the breathing room to step back and consider the games they wanted to be making and how they wanted the company to be seen. Morhaime explained simply: “We don’t want to identify ourselves with a particular genre. We just want to make great games every time.”

The game was never formally announced, but rumors that the company was working on a follow-up to its massively successful World of Warcraft began circulating in response to 2007 job postings for a “next-gen MMO.” The following year, Morhaime confirmed that the project was under development and would be an entirely new IP. Rumors about the content of the game itself circulated steadily for years, but nothing was ever verified by Blizzard beyond the project’s existence. In retrospect, the beginning of the end came in 2013 when the project was stripped down for “large design and technology changes.” The team of 100 was shifted around the company, leaving only 30 people working on Titan.

Both Morhaime and Metzen alluded to subsequent, smaller projects like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm as playing a part in the company’s decision to drop Titan. The success of Hearthstone showed that Blizzard’s games did not need to fit into a particular scale.

“Maybe we can be what we want to be and inspire groups around the company to experiment, get creative, think outside the box and take chances on things that just might thrill people,” explained Metzen. “Maybe they don’t have to be these colossal, summer blockbuster-type products.”

BlizzCon, the company’s annual convention, is fast approaching on November 7-8. With Titan off the table your guesses are as good as any as for what revelations might be had, so share any speculation in the comments.

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Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
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