It’s been over 20 years since Diablo originally released on PC, and it’s been decades of fans having their own expectations on what the series should be. Blizzard’s ongoing Diablo 4 is just the latest in a long line of games, and it’s received more than its fair share of criticism over the past two years. 

As Diablo 4 gears up for its next expansion in 2026, Blizzard has a lot of expectations to live up to. After a year of annoying seasonal updates, fans are hoping this upcoming expansion – which appears to be reviving the Paladin class – will be something truly mind-blowing. But will it be? 

In an interview with PCGamesN, Diablo series creator David Brevik explained that the modern team working on the ARPG series do have a lot more pressure to deliver than the team behind the original game had. At this point, Diablo 4 can’t fail, and part of that is meeting the extreme expectations of the fans and still over delivering. 

“I think that anytime that you have a big game and you make any changes at all, you’re going to have some people that are not happy with it and are a little vocal about it,” Brevik said, explaining that you can’t please everyone. “So I think it’s a really tough thing when you’re super popular and you have a huge game, the expectations are just through the roof.

“It’s just really stressful to do anything. And so you have to put that aside and say, ‘Hey, I believe in the direction we’re going here. I believe in what we’re doing, and though maybe not everybody will understand it, and I recognize that, we think that this is the best thing for the future of the product and the company and things like that.’ I think that is a difficult thing to do. And, you know, the expectations are super high. And whenever you’re doing anything like that, it’s never an easy task.”

Brevik explained that the unbelievably high expectations of AAA game, specifically live-service games, put so much pressure on developers that many are just leaving the AAA industry behind all together. 

“We’ve seen so many triple-A and double-A stuff get canceled in the last two years. It’s just brutal, and it’s really difficult for giant games. It’s super risky; there’s a lot of competition. It’s very different than it was 20 years ago,” the iconic developer said.