Wow! What a surprise? Blizzard has officially announced that its next major project is Starcraft II, a follow up to its classic real-time strategy game from back in 1998, which has seemingly been in development since 2003.

Starcraft II was finally unveiled at a special event in the Olympic Gymnastic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea, where Blizzard hosts its 2007 Worldwide Invitational competitive gaming even.

First reports from the event claim that the game manages to retain the look of the original, but with the addition of nice shiny 3D visuals.

No release date window for Starcraft II has been announced as yet. Sources close to the project told SPOnG today that, in typical Blizzard fashion, “it will be finished when it’s finished, simple as that.”

“As with all Blizzard games, we will take as much time as needed to ensure the game is as fun, balanced, and polished as possible,” says a similar message on the new StarCraft II website, here.

StarCraft II is currently in development for both PC and Mac. The game will be built around the Havok physics engine and Blizzard is “still considering whether there will be exclusive DirectX 10 graphic effects.”

SPOnG will be catching up with the guys behind the game at E3 in July, and we will of course be sure to bring you all and any new assets and news as we get them.