StarCraft: Brood War Remaster Rumors Recap

In early August, iNews24, citing an inside source, reported a StarCraft: Brood War remaster in the works that would include high resolution graphics and an improved user interface, and would be initially announced in September with another announcement coming in during this year's BlizzCon, which occurred from November 4 – November 5.

This rumor didn't come as a surprise to some people, job positions listed under Classic Games began appearing as early as October 31, 2015, as shown by the Wayback Machine. The job positions were interpreted by some as evidence of a remaster in progress due to its wording, namely, "We’re restoring them to glory" and "Create conditions for experiences that look as good as they play", and therefore supported the rumor by iNews24.

Various debates quickly arose following the rumor, most of which focused on what Blizzard should or should not change. The validity of the rumor was less discussed as many fans hoped that the evidence presented was just good enough. September rolled by and no announcement from Blizzard, though that did not discourage fans from believing an announcement would be made at BlizzCon instead. BlizzCon slid right by with no announcement as well, though Diablo 1 fans will be able to get a taste of the original Diablo remake inside of Diablo 3 if they have a copy of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.

Despite no announcement of a StarCraft: Brood War remaster, it's important to note that the possibility is not completely off the table (to the public's knowledge), unlike WarCraft and WarCraft 2 which Jack Pearce, Blizzard's co-founder, and Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's president, explained that they are choosing to not remaster the two WarCraft games and will instead focus on other efforts.

With the passing of BlizzCon, it seems as though we're back at square one again. Not quite however, the existence of the, albeit unpublished, 1.17.0 patch could provide us with some insight. There are two routes that Blizzard must choose between should they decide to remaster the game: 1) make a backwards compatible client so that those playing on the remastered version could play with those on the traditional version, and 2) make a non-backwards compatible client that will not be able to play with those on the traditional version.

The latter case would cause a significant split in the Brood War community regardless of the changes that will be made, unless this remastered client will be offered for free, which doesn't sound very likely for a remaster. Also, depending on the changes that could be made as well as its pricing, the Brood War community would most likely stick with the traditional client. Assuming, increased game resolution will be provided, the former would cause backlash from the Brood War community due to concerns about fairness of gameplay. In both cases, Blizzard would have to maintain both games as it appears that a remaster will not supersede the traditional client, due to the fact that a new patch for the traditional client exists. This does not seem like a good idea for Blizzard's Classic Games Team because having to maintain an additional game would consequently strain their resources more.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of a StarCraft: Brood War remaster?