Blizzard job listing hints at StarCraft, Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 re-release

World of Warcraft brought more fans into the Warcraft fold than any game prior; Diablo 3 is a superb action-RPG experience; and StarCraft 2 is easily one of the best RTS games of all time – Blizzard has produced some truly spectacular titles of late, even if Diablo 3 was a little shaky at launch.

And with Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, Blizzard’s growth trajectory is on a firm upwards path. You can’t deny, then, that we’re talking about one of the most capable developers the gaming industry has ever known.

But what about their earlier games. For all of the good and the great the latest Blizzard titles have managed, there’s still something strangely alluring about the likes of Diablo 2, StarCraft and Warcraft 3. They’re more than just games that put Blizzard on the map; they’re the games that sold us on the genres they represented; and for many of us they’re the reason we’re gamers in the first place.

So it pleases us greatly to see a job listing by Blizzard for a “Senior Software Engineer, Classic Games”. The listing’s responsibilities? To restore StarCraft, Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 to their former glory.

“Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation.”

The job listing goes on to say, “We’re restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done.”

We hope that the original Diablo as well as Warcraft 1 and 2 are a part of that plan. Actually, we hope we’re right to assume that Blizzard is looking to re-release those games in the first place, though the following responsibilities would suggest that it’s exactly what will be required of the new employee(s).

The responsibilities for the position are as follows:

• Make gameplay first again on modern operating systems.
• Create conditions for experiences that look as good as they play.
• Own implementation and curation of features new and old.
• Combat hacking to improve multiplayer.
• Diagnose and fix all the things: crashes, deadlocks, overflows, heap corruptions, etc.

Throw in new or at the very least revitalized content and modern Battle.net implementation and we’re sold. Technically, these games are archaic, but they’re still about as good as gaming gets.