The next StarCraft may not be made by Blizzard, according to a new report

Nexon, the giant Korean developer and publisher, is said to be close to inking a deal with Blizzard over the rights to develop a sequel in the StarCraft franchise.

That's according to a report from Korean newspaper Chosun (via ResetEra), citing a "senior game industry official" who said the contract between the two companies "is on the verge of being finalised".

If completed, Nexon will be able to develop a sequel, though it's unclear from the machine translation whether that means a follow-up to StarCraft 2 specifically, or a new game in the franchise. Of course, as the report suggests, a Nexon-developed StarCraft 3 would be a major deal.

StarCraft and StarCraft 2 remain among the most popular titles in South Korea's PC bangs (internet cafes). Indeed, the competitive scene for real-time strategy games remains strong in the country. In many ways, competitive StarCraft laid the groundwork for esports as a whole. A Korean-developed StarCraft RTS would certainly make a lot of sense.

An RTS may not be what we're getting, however. Earlier this year, a different report said Blizzard is teaming up with Nexon to develop a shooter based on StarCraft, so it's unclear what type of game - or games - is in the works.

Making matters even more confusing, Blizzard is said to be working on a StarCraft shooter of its own, a project that is apparently lead by former Far Cry boss Dan Hay.

Whatever the case may be, we're likely going to hear something at BlizzCon later this month, where a StarCraft-related announcement is expected. The strongest hint yet of that has been the surprise, meta-altering update StarCraft 2 received back in June, six years after Blizzard ceased active development of the game.

BlizzCon takes place 12th-13th September, so we just need to wait a little longer to hopefully get some clarity on that.