Blizzard Entertainment has announced that they are officially ending new content development for StarCraft 2, the iconic sci-fi RTS game that originally launched back in 2010 as StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

From now on, the StarCraft 2 team will instead just focus on “season rolls and necessary balance fixes”.

In a post on the official Blizzard website, Blizzard executive producer and vice president Rob Bridenbecker said:

“We’re going to continue supporting StarCraft II in the same manner as we have with our previous longstanding games, such as Brood War, focusing primarily on what our core and competitive communities care about most.

What this means is that we’re not going to be producing additional for-purchase content, such as Commanders and War Chests, but we will continue doing season rolls and necessary balance fixes moving forward.

We know some of our players have been looking forward to some of the things we’re moving away from, but the good news is this change will free us up to think about what’s next, not just with regard to StarCraft II, but for the StarCraft universe as a whole.”

In recent years, most of StarCraft 2‘s new content came in the form of War Chests, unlockable content packs that include cosmetic rewards, and playable Commanders for the game’s cooperative mode in recent years. The game’s most recent War Chest launched back in June 2020.

The true final expansion for StarCraft 2 was Legacy Of The Void, which initially launched in November 2015.

It remains to be seen how this will affect the StarCraft 2 esports scene, which has been suffering for years after Blizzard mostly shifted focus to newer games with a bigger player base like Overwatch and Hearthstone.

However, the same post, Bridenbecker also said:

“StarCraft II esports, which is part of the highest echelon of professional competitive gaming, will also continue going strong as it has been through our partners ESL Gaming and GSL.”

Many figures on Twitter are calling this the end of an era for StarCraft 2, which kickstarted esports as we know it: