StarCraft: Ghost

StarCraft: Ghost
The StarCraft: Ghost logo
Developers
Designers
  • Jacob Stephens (Nihilistic Software)
  • Dave Maldonado (Swingin' Ape Studios)
ComposersKevin Manthei
Inon Zur (additional music)
SeriesStarCraft
PlatformsPlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox
ReleaseCancelled
GenresStealth, action
ModesSingle-player, multiplayer

StarCraft: Ghost was a military science fiction stealth-action video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It was intended to be part of Blizzard's StarCraft series and was announced in 2002. It was to be developed by Nihilistic Software for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 video game consoles. After several delays, Nihilistic Software ceded development to Swingin' Ape Studios in 2004. In 2005, Blizzard announced plans for the GameCube version were canceled.

The continued delay of Ghost caused it to be labeled vaporware, and it was ranked fifth in Wired News' annual Vaporware Awards in 2005. Blizzard announced in 2006 that the game was put on "indefinite hold" while the company investigated seventh generation video game console possibilities. Subsequent public statements from company personnel had been contradictory about whether production was to be renewed or planned story elements worked into other products. In 2014, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that Ghost had been canceled.

Unlike its real-time strategy predecessor StarCraft, Ghost was to be a third-person shooter, and intended to give players a closer and more personal view of the StarCraft universe. Following Nova, a Terran psychic espionage operative called a "ghost", the game would have been set four years after the conclusion of StarCraft: Brood War and cover a conspiracy about a secretive military project conducted by Nova's superiors in the imperial Terran Dominion. Very little of the game's storyline has been released; however, in 2006 a novel was published called StarCraft Ghost: Nova, which covers the backstory of the central character.