A Playable Build of the Canceled Starcraft Ghost Has Appeared Online

An early, playable Xbox build of Starcraft Ghost, the canceled third-person shooter set in Blizzard’s Starcraft universe, has reportedly leaked online, according to Kotaku. The footage gives us a major look into Blizzard’s troubled offshoot game.

Images of Starcraft Ghost appeared on Twitter user Andrew Borman’s feed Sunday morning, who said that the images were posted anonymously in Xbox forums.

Who would have thought a month ago that Starcraft Ghost would leak in some form? pic.twitter.com/24wCp4XBsE

— Andrew Borman (@Borman18) February 16, 2020

If a couple of screenshots aren’t enough for you, another person has uploaded about 11 minutes of footage from Starcraft Ghost to YouTube. YouTuber Leers Meneses shared the footage, which appears to be from the third mission of the same game that Borman earlier tweeted about. [caption id="attachment_2303930" align="alignnone" width="720"] Screenshot: Starcraft Ghost from Leers Meneses[/caption]

In the footage, we can see Starcraft Ghost protagonist Nova running around a very early 2000’s 3D alien planet, climbing some ledges, and firing on a massive alien with her Gauss Rifle, which, instead of firing projectiles, appears to call down a Hammer of Dawn-style energy beam. Nova later ziplines across a battlefield.

[caption id="attachment_2303929" align="alignnone" width="720"] Screenshot: Starcraft Ghost from Leers Meneses[/caption]

The gameplay itself seems pretty bog standard, even by early 2000s standards (to say nothing of the usual Blizzard polish), which may indicate at least one reason the game struggled to reach completion. Meneses says he used a modded Xbox 360 to access the game.

Another user by the name of Delso Bezerra appears to have uploaded separate footage of Starcraft Ghost as well. The footage shows a noticeably more visually polished version of Starcraft Ghost, featuring a lot of similar running and shooting gameplay.

[caption id="attachment_2303927" align="alignnone" width="720"] Screenshot: Delso Bezerra[/caption]

Kotaku later updated its story saying a source had provided a link to the build of Starcraft Ghost that people have managed to get their hands on, saying it was from a dev kit of the game.

Starcraft Ghost was announced in 2002, and was originally going to launch on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Blizzard first worked with developer Nihilistic Software, then later Swingin' Ape Studios. After several delays in development, the game was put on an indefinite hold in 2006. Former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime put the final nail in the coffin of Starcraft Ghost by confirming its cancellation in 2014.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2016/05/10/the-13-biggest-games-that-never-came-out"]

All that said, it looks like this Xbox build of Starcraft Ghost is now out in the wild proper now, so hardcore fans will almost certainly be able to get their hands on it if they know where to look.

[poilib element="accentDivider"] Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/starcraft-ghost-gameplay-leak-xbox-blizzard-footage-playable-build