Ex-StarCraft and Diablo devs form new studio to work on their own RTS game

A duo of ex-Diablo and StarCraft developers are heading up a new studio and starting work on an RTS game. The studio is called Uncapped Games, and it's being backed by Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent under its Lightspeed and Quantum Studios subsidiary.

Uncapped Games lead game designer David Kim worked on all three chapters of StarCraft 2 and more recently, Diablo 4, while lead producer Jason Hughes has producing credits on Diablo 3 and 4. Zhongshan Zhang, another Blizzard alum who was a programmer on Starcraft 2, is also helping Uncapped Games as lead engineer.

For now, the studio is dedicating its resources to creating the "next great PC RTS," and with Kim leading the charge, Uncapped Games definitely has the right credentials. The StarCraft veteran told GamesIndustry.biz that a new RTS game has been a long time coming.

"I've always wanted to take a shot at another RTS game for a very long time now, maybe close to a decade," Kim said. "I had been reached out to by various people and I've talked to various companies, but these ones felt like an opportunity of a lifetime for me... If we were going to take a stab at the next great RTS, I thought we needed the right company, the right people within our development team, and we need clearly aligned beliefs in what we're trying to do."

Of course, Uncapped Games has some stiff competition in the RTS space. Just last October, another team of Blizzard veterans formed Frost Giant Studios, which is also working on, get this, "the next great RTS." Frost Giant Studios is being led by Tim Campbell, the original lead campaign designer for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, and Tim Morten, the production director on StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void. We haven't seen anything from Frost Giant Studios' RTS, but Campbell recently said the developer isn't out to streamline the genre.

Uncapped Games is the latest in a massive group of studios with financial backing from Tencent, which is now the world's largest video game publisher. Last year, our pals at PC Gamer put together a handy guide to every game company that Tencent has money in, just in case you're interested in that sort of stuff.

Otherwise, stay tuned to our guide to new games of 2021 to keep abreast of everything on the horizon.