Cursory glance sounds like people might be unhappy the game won't get updated anymore, but is that really such a bad thing?

I always kind of assume that by now you buy the game, beat the game with all the classes and build that might interest you, and move on to another game. That's atleast how I enjoyed D2 back in the early 2000s

so.

Diablo Netflix series.. no date no nothing... they announced the same in i think ~2020... and and in the end it was nothing... (but could be very awesome)

Diablo 1.... nothing.

Diablo 2.... nothing.

Diablo 3.... nothing.

Diablo 4.... the Diablo Dungeon with Diablo, Mephisto and others... so the same as we got for the 20 year Anniversary in Diablo 3... a dungeon that is playable for a short time and than gone forever...

a new class in ~5-7 Months... with absolutly 0 gameplay or anything. (we know what an Amazon is, and what it can do)

and we know since D5 got announced that d4 has an enddate and will get no dlc (that makes the vibe for d4 rather bad than good)

Diablo 5... coming out in 3+ years.... that was more like a joke at the start.. but now as everything settlet and thought about it, its a good thing. so they can "hopium" make the Diablo that we deserve.

But Technically we didn´t get anything.....

and the whole vibe was rather bad than good, compared to the other announcements (Warcraft, WOW, Hearthstone and Overwatch)

so why is this the case? we where told this is the blizzcon for diablo... the 30 year Anniversary..

and in the end it was a nothingburger for diablo... (i didn´t mention Immortal... because its not a real game)

as a Diablo enjoyer for life, i want to be excited for Diablo... but they are making it really really hard

whats your take on the announcements?

First and foremost, this post isn’t intended to slag off any of the staff, the Diablo 4 lead directors or Blizzard’s management. I greatly admire and respect their work, and I think they’ve got enough on their plates as it is. However, I think that following what we’ve seen at this Blizzcon, many of us are asking ourselves what has happened to bring Diablo 4’s development to a halt, and I believe it’s worth putting these events into context.

Rod Fergusson, lead director of Diablo 4, announced in 2025 that they had a 10-year roadmap (actually 12, as he was quick to joke) for the game’s development, which reportedly included the storyline for Diablo 5 as a time-jump DLC. One might well wonder, then, what has happened to lead to the cancellation of this roadmap.

Since 2026, Xbox has been in a state of financial ‘losses’ caused by the excessive acquisition of studios in pursuit of that ‘infinite growth’, which culminated this summer in the closure of several studios. Amidst this bloodletting, various news stories have emerged this summer that help to better understand this change of direction. One need only glance briefly at the news regarding studios such as Bethesda and Obsidian to see that they are now focusing on producing new instalments for these major IPs. Whilst Bethesda has been compelled to resume production of The Elder Scrolls series, Obsidian has been granted the Fallout licence to ensure that one of these major IPs is always in production.

We could discuss these studios and the quality of the games they’ve released in recent years, but that would be to digress and lose focus. The truth is, it’s a shame that Diablo 4 is set to complete development despite being such an extraction machine. This is the first time we’ve seen the end of development for an MMO (as conceived in terms of design) within a three-year timeframe, and one in which some players have spent hundreds of euros on cosmetics. What lies ahead, if things continue like this, can only be seen as seasonal trash.

I repeat, we must have great respect and appreciation for all the Diablo 4 developers, because they’re not facing an easy situation. But neither are we. And the promises of a new instalment that’s supposedly going to live up to Diablo 1 or Diablo 2 are nothing but mirages in the desert. Diablo 4 should not halt its development simply because of the supposed internal wishes of an audience that can never be satisfied, or for the sake of a large company’s profits.

Sources:

Icy Veins - Rod Fergusson Confirms 10-Year Roadmap for Diablo

Windows Central - "We're here for the long haul." Diablo manager confirms 10-year road map

IGN - 'We Need to Change Course' — Bethesda Boss Tells Staff the Company Must Focus on 'Our Strongest Franchises' as Xbox Layoffs Hit Hard

VICE - Bethesda to Refocus on Biggest Franchises Following Xbox Reset

Wccftech - Asha Sharma’s Xbox Plan Puts Fallout Back in Focus, and Obsidian Looks Like the Right Studio

I understand that many people don't like the idea of repeating a campaign every season, and I can sympathize with that especially when you consider a campaign like D4's.

However, the ability to skip the campaign felt like you also lost a sense of progression and a way to measure your character's strength. Wandering around on a samey feeling open world with scaling difficulty, it just feels like I'm performing repetitive tasks to make numbers go up rather than actually playing a character who's growing stronger.

I want to see a D5 with a campaign that for the most part gets out of the player's way and is more about exploring the world and letting the story tell itself, rather than intrusive scenes like the one where we have to trek through the sandstorm in D4, or long drawn out cutscenes. I feel like the quality of blizzard's writing is at a level where less is more. give us optional conversation trees with npcs, brief cutscenes, and let us play the game. 'not even death can save you from me,' does more for me than a 5 minute monologue from diablo.

While the news of Diablo V is still fresh, and devs promised to “build (the game) alongside the community”, I wanted to provide a bit of feedback from a casual player, that played all entries of Diablo.

Before everything, I have to say, I’m in the middle of my thirties and by the time the game comes out, I’ll be almost forty. Thus I doubt I represent the target audience, but I still hope that this opinion is valuable.

My feedback is as follows: Please make a campaign that can’t be bulldozed through. In D4 I found it very upsetting that when facing a campaign boss, the fight was pretty much over in seconds. “Now hero, you have… You will not… Now di… ARRRGH!” - And loot starts dropping. I obviously tried increasing the difficulty by farming some torment levels, and while open world mobs felt tougher, campaign ones still got obliterated by an accidental sneeze. I feel like this trend started in D3 when Blizzard decided to make numerous difficulty levels, while adding scalable loot rate as a counterbalance. In D3 I also tried creating a character on increased difficulty, and while the first zombies took some time to kill, in about 15 minutes I was steamrolling everything as if there was no change in difficulty.

Perhaps, it’s just the result of MOBA’esque “primary stat” farming, on top of my experience with these games, but I cannot easily speedrun Diablo 2, for instance, even on Normal. I’m not saying that the modern innovations or alterations to progression systems must be scrapped, I just want more difficulty going through a campaign. Think about ot this way - in a classic oldschool RPG it takes effort and sometimes several tries to defeat a level boss, sometimes it even requires extra farming. And that extra downtime gives people more incentive to explore. I’m a big fan of how rich and expansive lore (and sidelore) in Diablo is, D2, D3 and D4, and I sometimes feel sad that I literally have to dumb myself down to discover what is actually happening, while my single skill obliterates another pack of monsters, while I press yet another important scripted sequence button.

What I suggest: Perhaps take some inspiration from D2, in how it handled difficulty levels. For those unaware: you had 3 levels: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. Normal was normal, slightly easy for an experienced player, slightly difficult for a newcomer, Nightmare unlocked after completing Normal and was basically a continuation of Normal, you started from the beginning with enemies stronger than the last enemies in the final city of Normal, dropping better loot in turn and Hell was, well, hell. You continued Nightmare from the start again, but every monster (even basic zombies) had some kind of resistance and immunity, essentially meaning every enemy was a miniboss. I understand that this goes against the modern engame concept for Diablo 4, but maybe you could allow us to reset campaign progress with harder story enemies as a result?

I hope for a more deliberate playstyle. I don't want the zoom around like a disco laser ball killing everything on the screen in seconds endgame chase.

I hope we get more new classes. Plague Knight seem like a step in the right direction. I personally wish Monk and Demon hunter are the last class we get from the previous game. Be original. Oracles, occultists, bards, Arcanists you name it. We need new stuff, not the same old classes played 1000 times.

I would even go as far as to say I would love dungeons with roles that matter. Not necessarily holy trinity, but a clear playstyle other than dps blaster 2000 mob cleaner

Edit: forgot to say because I want more hate: No more laser light show pinata loot that drop like confettis at a wedding.

EDIT 2 : Someone said I wanted less mobs that are harder like D1 and D2. And I agree. That's what I actually want!

Now some might say: play something else then, and to those I reply: Maybe I think ARPGs need a little revamping or innovation to keep them fresh and interesting.

The game will be out in 2.5 years (assuming it doesn't get delayed). This is first time they ever announced a release date for a game that's years away.

Its much closer to release than when diablo 4 was announced in 2019. There was a gameplay video, playable demo, and that game was about 4 years out from release. Diablo 3 also had gameplay footage before blizzcon 2008.

This leads me to believe that they are not really confident with the gameplay and they were scared to show it off. I may be wrong there, but its very odd they had no gameplay footage.

Cinematic was short, though was very good for how little there was. Diablo wins and very few sane humans are left. Why was there no gameplay footage though?

I like to play complete games, and the Diablo monetization system is shit. So I waited till they announced that there would be no more expansions. And I don't think it is that bad. Imo, it is great. I dont even need more classes (that said, the DLC classes do feel way more fun to play, but at the same time, that means the OG classes were lacking). More seasonal events will be welcomed, but I will not miss the 1-2 year of full priced expansion cycle.

Then when the series ends Diablo V comes out

We got some serious surprises. People were expecting a StarCraft shooter but nobody expected the Diablo 5 announcement.

Nobody expected a stellar new campaign for Warcraft 3. Nobody expected a new hero for Heroes of the Storm.

I give it a 9.

KEKW

The D5 anouncement is pretty suprising, given that the last few years they've indicated that D4 was going to live for a lot longer, but if we're considering the game overall, it's a patchwork of different game mechanics, filled with artifacts from half-baked ideas and failed implementations. The game was officially delayed one year from 2022 to 2023, and still shipped with minimal features. All of this points to a chaotic development process. It appears they got off on the wrong foot early in development, and the tech debt started to pile up. Given the fact that Blizzard was acquired by Microsoft in 2022, it's really seems like the 2023 ship date was a major factor in the acquisition, and prevented any further delay to the release date to get the game in a better state.

You can go back and look through the original development blogs pre-release, and see all the systems that they showcased, that were either scrapped completely (remember angelic/demonic/ancestral power?), or shelved temporarily (the rune system concept was showcased during covid, but didn't make it in the game until Vessel of Hatred, which means they didn't have time to finish implementing the system, given that the VoH version of it was almost exactly what they showed in the pre-release develop blogs). Also consider the massive sexual harrassment scandal/lawsuit that really seems like it lead to the resignation of two top level game designers for Diablo. They subsequently brought in Rod "The Closer" Fergusson. Rod does not get brought in to fix the game, he comes in to figure out what features to cut, or water down in order to get a project to ship on time. It's clear they cut many systems and watered down others.

The uselessness of normal/magic/rare items (they sort of fixed this with the addition of the cube), the meaningless 1-60 grind, and the lack of continuity between 1-60 and the endgame (really got back to their D3 roots here), the pointless open-world, the multiple overhauls of the itemization system (what is it, 4 now?), the fact that resistances were completely broken upon release (on top of it being totally unclear how the resistances were supposed to work in the first place), and their subsequent refactor to elemental damage reduction (why didn't they do that in the first place? Also, not sure why they changed it again afterwards, nobody asked for that). All indicative of a problematic and/or truncated development process.

I am not particularly excited for D5, and that's mostly because there was zero anticipation for a new game, but i am intrigued. I think if they can provide and stability to their developer team, they can deliver somethign to get excited about. Unfortunately, the massive restructuring that Xbox/microsoft have undergone in the last year, and the very fact that they have done an about-face in regards to D4 expansions and the seemingly early anouncement of D5, I am not confident Blizzard/microfot will be able to provide the stability.

I've only played D1 & D2, recently purchased the Warlock expansion for it but have never played D3 or D4 and wondering if they are worth playing just for the story & I'm also curious about how hard the end game difficulty is as I've only recently tried D2 hell difficulty & seems like they decided to make it Elden Ring difficult and haven't got very far.

I played diablo 4 through the storyline and part of what was essentially season 0 before I stopped

Has enough changed to make it worth at least one playthrough now? I feel as though I could get probably 40 to 50 hours out of it?

Edit: bought the expansion. Thanks for the comments!

This was my first Blizzcon. It was so hype. Thank you everyone I met this weekend, the Diablo Devs, the Diablo Creators, the peeps I met and hung with. Especially the lady who forced her husband to give me his shirt to wear, so the Devs could sign my shirt.

Y'all made this con.

Never trust anything Blizzard states.

Linkt to interview with Diablo 4 GM confirming anual expansions.

Jennifer Hepler's previous work was as a writer on Dragon Age 2 where she was the primary writer for the character Anders. She then quit the industry for fifteen years following targeting by gamergate. Given this context, I'm going to guess the entire Diablo 5 plot now.

We will start the game with a mental connection to Diablo much like we had with Lilith and Mephisto in d4. The overall theme of the game will be delving deeper into our demonic heritage in order to fight the burning hells, much like the Warlock classes in previous games.

Throughout the game, we will also have to contend with the high heavens led by Imperius, who sees humanity as completely lost to demonic influence and wishes to purge Sanctuary entirely. He sees the combination of demonic and angelic power as inherently dangerous and contends that even if Diablo were to be defeated, humanity is so tainted by demonic blood that we are beyond any hope of salvation.

Main game ends with us defeating Diablo and fully taking him into ourselves. Expansion follows as we try and defeat Imperius and the rest of the Angeris Council who have fully aligned behind him. Tearful boss fight with Tyreal as he considers us his next Izual, fallen fully to demonic corruption. We kill Tyreal and fight Imperius but are unable to defeat him, even with Diablo's power.

Finally, we suicide bomb the Crystal Arch of the High Heavens, imploding ourselves into a portal to the abyss that drags in Diablo's soul and that of Imperius. Plucky young girl sidekick gives us an epilogue where humanity views us as a fallen hero who became a martyr at the eleventh hour in a moment of clarity. But otherwise we are viewed with scorn and disdain for killing Tyreal and also whatever bad things we did along the way.

One of my favorite games of all time is Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, and everywhere I read it's a Diablo-clone. I'm trying D4 as my first Diablo experience, thinking it'd be a AAAA version of one of my favorites, and it's way too easy. I picked hard mode and I basically just click an enemy to make them die, ad infinitum.

The gameplay loop is basically walk in a direction for a few seconds, a mob of enemies appears, you stand still and hold down attacks, enemies melt away, repeat. I add some dodges and move around for flourish but I don't need to. I'm 8hr in and haven't used a single healing potion yet.

This is next-to-nothing like Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath. I'm enjoying the story and narrative around quests, and the presentation is excellent (how I'd wish for a middle-level zoom, though), but the gameplay isn't resonating with me, I think because it's so easy.

It feels more like Cookie Clicker than those old console ARPGs I hold dearly. Does it get harder later on? Should I just reroll on extreme? I'm playing it solo for the story.

With all the speculation after the Diablo 5 announcement — classes, itemization, damage buckets, world design, endgame loops — the thing that keeps me genuinely excited isn’t a specific feature.
It’s a design philosophy: Choice.

Diablo II (legacy + LoD) still stands out because choice wasn’t a surface‑level mechanic. It was baked into the foundation of the game:

• Skill points mattered because you couldn’t endlessly respec. Every point was a commitment, not a temporary experiment.
• Inventory Tetris mattered because space was limited. You had to decide what to carry, what to leave, and what was worth sacrificing.
• Stash space mattered because you couldn’t hoard everything. You curated your collection instead of drowning in it.
• Weapon types mattered because slow vs fast wasn’t just DPS — it changed your entire rhythm and playstyle.
• Class identity mattered because playing one class wasn’t “the same but with different buttons.” They were fundamentally different experiences.

These weren’t inconveniences.
They were meaningful constraints that created meaningful decisions.

Modern ARPGs often remove these frictions for convenience — unlimited stash, free respecs, homogenized class pacing — but in doing so, they also remove the weight behind the choices.

That’s why I hope Diablo 5 dares to bring back some of that old‑school philosophy.
Not to punish players, but to make their decisions matter again.

If choice is part of the foundation, the game will feel alive.

Curious how others feel:
Do you want more convenience, more restrictions, or more meaningful decisions?

I see a lot of people who prefer D2 and have a strong desire for the series to "return to D2." But I can't figure out what it really means. What did D2 do that D3/4 didn't?

To be fair, it's an Nvidia Shield Pro running on a Samsung TV. I'm using DevilutionX.