From a canceled MMO to a smash-hit shooter. How a huge failure was turned into one of Blizzard's best decisions

There was a time when everything Blizzard Entertainment touched turned to gold. However, over the years, the studio slowly began to lose (at least to some extent, though critics might say it lost it completely) its former glory, and the list of its achievements included more and more unsuccessful projects.

One of them was the Odyssey, which I described in July, that was supposed to revolutionize the survival game genre but ended up in the industry's graveyard. Another was StarCraft: Ghost, which I looked into over a year ago. The next one was an MMORPG called Project Titan. It was supposed to sit alongside World of Warcraft and beat other companies to the punch, but it ended up being a total flop, too. How did it happen? Well... it turns out we know something about that.

From "World of StarCraft" to a vision

The story of Titan kicks off with the fact that it was originally supposed to be an MMORPG set in the StarCraft universe. In the end, it was decided to set the game in a unique, original world. Work on it began in 2007, and the project was entrusted to Rob Pardo and Chris Metzen. Even though these two guys had already worked together on StarCraft: Brood War and WoW, and it seemed like their collaboration would be smooth, it actually ended up being one of the reasons the project failed.

Their visions differed significantly. The main idea was that Project Titan would take us to a not-so-distant future, around the year 2070, where we'd get to play as characters who, when not being heroes, would have to deal with everyday stuff. While Metzen wanted to make them true superheroes, Pardo envisioned them more as secret agents.

An MMORPG in the StarCraft universe could have been something exceptional. Source: Blizzard Entertainment.

Two worlds

In Titan, you'd mostly see the action from a first-person view, but sometimes the camera would switch to a third-person perspective. The gameplay loop was planned to be divided into two segments. In the real world, our characters would be living regular lives, working as chefs or businesspeople, but in the so-called Shadow World, they'd be busy saving a futuristic world.

The last one was supposed to have a life of its own, with the characters in it remembering what we did and having complex interactions with our heroes. To properly address this issue, Blizzard even hired former Maxis studio employees who previously worked on the development of The Sims series.

The creators were planning to set up a class-based system. Among them, there would be a place for the Jumper (a scout equipped with teleportation), the Titan (a classic tank), and the Ranger (a sniper with optical camouflage). As progress was made, we would develop the protagonists, enhancing their skills. However, according to behind-the-scenes reports, the entire system seemed "overcomplicated," turning the gameplay into one big chaos.

Overwatch uses stuff that was originally made for Titan. Source: Blizzard Entertainment.

Chaotic development process

Chaos also accompanied the production process, because instead of following a clearly defined path, due to the lack of a coherent vision (suffice it to say that in the meantime, there were rumors that Titan would enable... time travel), the devs were fragmented, while the artists created huge amounts of materials, only some of which the team managed to use.

All of this resulted in the decision to reboot the project in 2013, after six years of work. Furthermore, a decision was made to reassign 70% of the team managing it to other projects and to dismiss some developers. The small group remaining with Titan was supposed to "change the direction" of the project's development.

Over time, the plan to reboot turned into canceling Titan and building something completely new from its ashes. In 2014, this was confirmed by Mike Morhaime, who was then the head of Blizzard Entertainment.

Not all of me will die

The 40-person team left with what's left of Titan has been given a month and a half to lay the groundwork for a brand new project. The creators decided to downsize it a lot and turn it into a multiplayer shooter. They got their inspiration from Team Fortress 2 and the MOBA genre, and this direction allowed them to use some stuff they had developed for Titan.

That's how Overwatch came to be. It was announced in 2014 and launched two years later, becoming a huge hit both creatively and commercially. The rest is history.

However, going back to Titan, although a lot of assets were supposed to be created, none of them actually saw the light of day. However, an article published on Kotaku reveals that the graphic aesthetic would be somewhere between StarCraft II and The Incredibles. So, it's safe to say that in terms of visuals, Titan would be reminiscent of what we eventually got in Overwatch.

World of Warcraft remains the only MMORPG in Blizzard's portfolio. Source: Blizzard Entertainment.

Consequences

Unfortunately, the Titan's failure had far-reaching effects. The project's failure was supposed to weaken Blizzard Entertainment's position compared to Activision, which ended up giving the higher-ups, especially Bobby Kotick, more control over what Blizzard was doing. Although Mike Morhaime (who left Blizzard in 2018) admitted that Titan's transformation into Overwatch was one of the best decisions in the history of this company, it's safe to say that the consequences of this failure are still felt today.

Project Titan

cancelled

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