Titan

Titan is the codename for a next-gen MMORPG under development at Blizzard Entertainment. Nothing is known about Titan's setting or game type, other than that it is an MMORPG, and that it's set in a new IP. Titan is not Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, or even The Lost Vikings; it has no direct connection to any other Blizzard gaming world.

Blizzard has said they're very unlikely to announce anything official about Titan until 2012.[1]

Codename: Titan

Codename Titan leaked.

The codename of Titan was revealed in late 2010, thanks to a leaked internal company memo/product release chart. Prior to that it was known that Blizzard was developing a next-gen MMORPG, as they'd been posting jobs on the project as far back as 2007, but there was no name attached to the project.

Frank Pearce confirmed that Titan was indeed the codename for the project a few weeks after the memo was leaked.[2]

"Titan is... the media is not meant to know anything about that," said Pearce. "It’s our next-gen MMO and we’ve only started talking about it in a limited fashion because we want to leverage the fact that we’re working on something like that for the purpose of recruiting – getting some of the best talent in the industry on that."

A New IP

Titan was confirmed to be a new IP (Intellectual Property) by WoW CM Zarhym, in a post from 2007.

We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this.

This was repeated later in 2007 by WoW CM Drysc (who changed his name to Bashiok when he moved over to the Diablo III CM job) commented on the job postings:[3]

No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO. And that doesn't mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.

During the company's Q2 2010 earnings call Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick commented on the Titan project and confirmed it would be an entirely new IP.:[4]

Learning from WoW

Though few specifics have been given, Blizzard has often spoken of lessons they've learned from World of Warcraft and how they might apply those to Titan. Jeffrey Kaplan spoke on that to Mtv:[5]

"I think the great part about a new MMO from Blizzard is that it doesn't have to be 'WoW'," he said. "There are a lot of lessons we learned in making 'World of Warcraft,' and some of those you can take and do things better than you ever did before."

Titan's Setting

Nothing is known about the setting of Titan, though rumors abound. The project head, Jeffrey Kaplan, did nothing to clarify matters in an interview with Mtv:[6]

I think any type of [intellectual property] can survive. I'm shocked we haven't seen more sci-fi, near-future, post-apocalyptic, historical MMOs; there's all these completely different fantasy settings beyond the traditional high fantasy ones." So is Blizzard's new MMO going to be sci-fi, near-future, post-apocalyptic or historical? "All of those combined!" he said, laughing.

There have also been past job openings for the Titan team that mention Sci-Fi and Fantasy style artwork amongst the job requirements:

2+ years game development experience modeling and texturing sci-fi and fantasy character armor and weapons for next-gen art pipelines.

References