Microsoft forms new team within Blizzard to work on “AA” games based on Blizzard franchises

While there was a lot of discussion of what effect the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger might have on the games industry in the long term, there hadn’t been a lot of visible effect outside of perhaps some effect on Diablo 4‘s launch. However, that now seems poised to change. A story today from Windows Central has noted that many employees working specifically at subsidiary King have changed their LinkedIn profiles to indicate a shift internally to a new team, specifically a new team dedicated to creating AA games using existing Blizzard franchises.

The “AA” terminology is one that’s cropped up in recent years, and simply refers to smaller teams with lower budgets compared to tentpole “AAA” games at major developers and publishers. These teams often operate with a fair amount of flexibility outside of corporate bureaucracy, allowing more creative ideas to find success. Microsoft has already implemented this internally with Halo developer 343i, indicating that the company sees it as a worthwhile concept. Microsoft’s game Sea of Thieves is also arguably an example of AA success, having been created by a smaller-than-usual team internally at Microsoft, but going on to become one of the most profitable franchises of the Xbox era.

One possible reason to be hesitant about this announcement is that the repurposing of employees comes entirely from King, the subsidiary of ABK that has traditionally focused entirely on freemium mobile games — their largest and most enduring success has been Candy Crush Saga, leading to jokes this morning among Blizzard Watch staff anticipating StarCraft Crush Saga and Zerg Merge. However, it seems unlikely that Blizzard’s extremely deep well of beloved franchises — Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch, not to mention older games like Rock and Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings — would be used for titles with such small focus, especially with an entire new team being spun up to create them.

Is Phil Spencer finally going to make StarCraft: Ghost a reality? Only time will tell, but with parent company Microsoft embracing the concept of games produced by more agile teams rather than only relying on multi-year super-expensive AAA titles, there’s plenty of reasons to look forward to new innovative titles in the worlds we already know and love.