Blizzard has done a lot of post-launch work on Diablo 4, more than any other game in the series. Since launch, it’s changed a lot with major changes to itemisation, seasonal content drops, and major gameplay additions.
Recently, Diablo 4 received its second expansion in the form of Lord of Hatred. The finale to the ongoing Age of Hatred storyline, the new expansion added two new classes, a full story, and a host of gameplay additions. However, some of the content originally planned for Lord of Hatred was already added to the ARPG.
Speaking to IGN, Associate Game Director Zaven Haroutunian explained that Lord of Hatred was in active development before Diablo 4’s early 2023 release. Back then, Blizzard pushed for an annual expansion release structure, and having content in the pipeline was essential.
As Blizzard pushed to continue improving Diablo 4, some of the content planned for Lord of Hatred ended up being added before the expansion. Internal Hordes, which Blizzard added in 2024, was planned to launch alongside Lord of Hatred, but was instead pushed out in a seasonal update.
“Throughout the entire development of Lord of Hatred, the number of activities varied,” the game director explained. As Diablo 4 required new content or systems changes to keep fans engaged, parts of expansions were sliced up, finished off, and deployed into the base game.
“Part of this was because we had such a long start on this project; we’ve been developing it in some way since before the base game launched, so it’s been cooking for a while,” he continued. “And along the way, some things that were in prototype or development ended up being deployed early. It was like, a horde mode would be cool, but what would be even cooler is if we ship that earlier.”
Lord of Hatred was also planned to add a host of new locations that players might see in the future. However, as Haroutunian puts it, the game needed “depth way more than breadth”, causing the team to focus on new gameplay features and polish instead of adding large locations fans don’t actually want to explore.
“I think there is a rightful critique of the game, that we had all these activities, but they were mostly pretty static,” the developer said. “Very easy to approach and understand, but not much depth. It wasn’t like they were bad, but if we added activity progression, we could preserve the approachability of our endgame, where it’s easy to get into Helltides or a Nightmare Dungeon. And the trees mean that our core audience, hardcore players, and blasters, know that the endgame is also for them.”
Right now, Diablo 4 is in the best place it’s ever been, and player counts are high enough that fans are actually celebrating. As usual, there are still areas of the game that could do with improvements, but D4 is now in a place where most fans are happy and hungry for more.
Haroutunian concludes that “everything is in the right place” as of Lord of Hatred’s release. After a substantial amount of post-launch work, the ARPG is as it should be, although the team isn’t done with the game’s post-launch support.
The future of Diablo 4 is currently unknown outside of the fact that there will be additional support. Lord of Hatred’s storyline certainly teases that a third expansion could be coming with a major narrative reset. D4’s story is, technically, wrapped up, but should we have to wait for Diablo 5 before continuing? (I hope not!)
