D2 Diablo 4 release delayed

This evening Activision Blizzard released their third-quarter financials and there’s some bad news for Diablo players. The Diablo 4 release has been delayed.

In an update to Blizzard’s release pipeline, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 are going to be delayed. Blizzard stated:

While we are still planning to deliver a substantial amount of content from Blizzard next year, we are now planning for a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally envisaged.

These are two of the most eagerly anticipated titles in the industry, and our teams have made great strides towards completion in recent quarters. But we believe giving the teams some extra time to complete production and continue growing their creative resources to support the titles after launch will ensure that these releases delight and engage their communities for many years into the future.

These decisions will push out the financial uplift that we had expected to see next year. But we are confident that this is the right course of action for our people, our players, and the long-term success of our franchises.

Although we didn’t have a release date, and we didn’t think it was imminent, it could be a few more years until it surfaces. Better get used to those Pindleskin runs for a while longer.


In other more positive Diablo news, Diablo 2 Resurrected has seen Blizzard’s highest recorded sales for a remaster. That said, the Warcraft 3 remaster was quite the disaster so we’ve no idea how well Diablo 2 Resurrected has sold. Probably quite well though based on what we have seen and that’s great for the Diablo franchise and its future.

The full financial results can be picked up over on Blizzard’s investor relations page so I won’t bore you with numbers. You can also listen on the conference call but you will probably lose the will to live after 5 minutes.

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The D4 announcement was exciting, but that news immediately faded when I first heard about D2R (it was an instant pre-order from me). Server issues aside, I'm more than satisfied playing the beautiful D2 remaster.
 
Oh dear. I was half expecting it because it's Blizzard but it's still disappointing and with not even a vague year it's even more frustrating.
expect 2024 if were lucky. They announced D4 WAY too soon and it was just to make the fans happy and also aware they are working on it.

I know its not always about the graphics but for todays release D4 are outdated.... im honestly disappointed.
 
Not sure why they would announce a delay in the release date/launch when the D4 hasn't even received a release date. Why even bring this to the table and disappoint the fanbase? Bad PR move.
 
I get that with a website name of PureDiablo, you kind of have to cover this, and in my defense, I wouldn't be here at all if Google didn't insist on sharing all things Diablo with me for some reason(even though I've told their application I'm not interested).

But frankly, ever since Blizzard stopped development on D2:LoD, just about everything they've turned out has been utter garbage.

D3 had the "always online; oh wait no it's not" debacle that has yet to be corrected.

WoW Classic was overrun by bots while Blizzard stood by and did *nothing* to address the issue.

Overwatch, I can't comment on, because I'm not into FPS games, but my opinion on the subject is that FPS games in general have been garbage ever since they came to focus exclusively on multiplayer PvP, while completely lacking any actual game content.

So, unless and until Blizzard decides to pull their head out of the deep recesses of their asses, I can be found enjoying Project Diablo 2, which would be the last great thing to come out of Blizzard(and they can't even take credit for it, really).

In summary, I'm not looking forward to D4 at all, though I will gladly spend money on it if they do it right. And that means an offline playable game mode, whether that means single player or LAN only, either or both is fine. Oh, and if it's got always online DRM, they can likewise go suck an egg.
 
expect 2024 if were lucky. They announced D4 WAY too soon and it was just to make the fans happy and also aware they are working on it.

I know its not always about the graphics but for todays release D4 are outdated.... im honestly disappointed.
Yeah, the graphics need to be improved before release. The style and aesthetics looks fine from what I saw but it better use higher quality graphics, lighting, character animations, etc if it is going to come out in 2 or 3 years from now.

I don't follow the game closely to know but I hope the D2 mechanics, item drop rates, etc are included rather than D3. For me, D3 plays more like an action game whereas D2 still has some RPG elements. The open questing after game completion on D3 was better and should be used.

We also need to see some innovations (maybe PvP or arena style boss battles or whatever.) From the videos I saw, it didn't look like anything new but we only saw a small portion so hard to say.
 
So from here and the SEC filing, they spell out a planned launch for 2022. That's pretty impressive and I half didn't even expect it, so I'm not all too disheartened by this. Even if the release is "indefinite" now, I expect it to have been moved forward to 2023. Not counting expansions and remakes, Blizzard is in a drought of AAA releases with the last one being Overwatch (!) five years ago. (ouch, how time flies...) So I don't think they can bear with all too long delays, regardless their official stance of "release when done". There's under pressure both from Activision and investors, and the situation is already bad. It was getting bad two years ago. One can wonder how they got into this situation but at least as for Diablo, it was obviously part due to the prematurely abandoned Diablo 3 project other than for ladder maintenance.

I'm also happy we have Diablo 2 Resurrected now! Soon to be moving into Hell with my Meteorb Sorceress!
 
The D4 announcement was exciting, but that news immediately faded when I first heard about D2R (it was an instant pre-order from me). Server issues aside, I'm more than satisfied playing the beautiful D2 remaster.
Haha i feel the same, to the point that i just hope it gets postponed even further so the D2 player base stays healthy haha
 
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