Fanmade StarCraft FPS once again makes players mourn Ghost

Oh, what could have been

Canceled shooter game StarCraft: Ghost, which was in development at Blizzard Entertainment in the early 2000s, is one of gaming’s greatest “What if…” stories and fans of the beloved series are mourning the title to this day. This stinging feeling is going to come back to the surface after you’ve played StarCraft: Marine, a fanmade project that was released on January 1, 2024.

Made by one person over the course of last summer, Marine is a free first-person shooter that was created as a programming exercise in Unreal Engine 5. It features three levels, four different weapons, and many classic StarCraft enemies to shoot at. You can watch an action-packed trailer for the project below:

You can play StarCraft: Marine on three different difficulties called Protoss, Zerg, and Terran – with Protoss obviously being the easiest.

While not huge in scope, the game is put together quite nicely and really brings back that feeling of having missed out on something by never getting to play StarCraft: Ghost. There’s just some draw to the idea of playing as a Terran Marine or Ghost facing off against endless Zerg swarms – it’s the same idea as for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which has players cut through a host of Tyranids (and we all know where Blizzard got the idea for Terrans and Zerg from in the first place).

Fans hope that Microsoft taking over Activision Blizzard will bring about some revitalization of the StarCraft IP with a brand-new game, no matter the genre, and the leadership at Xbox certainly is aware that a passionate fan base for the franchise exists. But even if Microsoft wants to spur the developer into action or give the IP to another studio for a project, it’s going to be a long wait until anything tangible materializes from that.

In the meantime, all we can do is rewatch the surviving StarCraft: Ghost footage on the internet and partake in fanmade games like StarCraft: Marine, which provide tasty morsels on which we can survive until we hear anything concrete about future projects. Naturally, nothing is stopping you from diving into one of the RTS games of the series either – the remaster of StarCraft: Brood War is the most accessible version of the incredible game yet and StarCraft 2 is still alive and kicking as a free-to-play game you can pick up for exciting multiplayer matches or some great co-op action.