What If StarCraft Had Come Out In 1984?

If Blizzard’s classic StarCraft had been released during the early 80s, it might have looked like this.

Artist/illustrator Owen Dennis was a big fan of StarCraft, but what he didn’t know was that his uncle had secretly worked on the game at Blizzard – more than a decade before the final product actually came out! “I found this in his closet next to an old Colecovision,” said Davis of his rare discovery: An early build of StarCraft developed for a platform similar to the NES or Apple II.

It’s a far cry from the StarCraft we know today. It may have the same races of Terran, Zerg, and Protoss, and many of the same units, sure. But we no longer have the top-down perspective; the game is instead played from a side-scrolling point-of-view. Also, Protoss are mad overpowered.

In case you haven’t figured it out already, this is a fan-imagined de-make; it’s an excellent reimagining of what the legendary StarCraft might have looked like if it had been released in 1984. Frankly, I prefer the game we got – though, knowing how glacial Blizzard’s development cycle tends to be, it could very well have been working on StarCraft back in the 80s. Yes, that’s right. Blizzard was working on the first SC before it was even a company.

Now that’s dedication. (Oh, and so is Owen Dennis’ video.)

(StarCraft Twitter)