Since its debut in 1997, there have been five major Diablo releases, including the very popular but also very hated Diablo Immortal. As any long-time fan of the series will tell you, waiting years for a new game is just part of the experience of the series, but Blizzard may be aiming to speed up the production of new games.
Right now, Blizzard has two ongoing projects in the series: Diablo 4 which is receiving its second expansion later this year, and Diablo 2 which will receive additional DLC based on the reception to its recent Reign of the Warlock expansion. However, executive producer and VP Gavian Whishaw explained that he wants more games in the series to release at a faster rate.
Speaking to Variety, Whishaw explained that that the situation is “complicated” due to the fact that fans will gladly support older games in the Diablo series. While the executive avoided the question of when the next game in the series will be revealed, he did confirm that the company wants to release more games.
“It’s kind of complicated when you’re talking about titles that have been around for 20 years and people are still dedicated to and still playing and still going to get excited about new content,” the executive said. “I’ll say at a high level, I think over 30 years of Diablo, we’ve done five titles. So I would hope that over the next 30 years we do a few more than that, maybe we get some out faster.”
In that same interview, Blizzard president Johanna Faries explained that there are plans to expand every IP under the Blizzard umbrella. This comes after statements that the studio’s World of Warcraft needs to be more than “simply an MMORPG” as it battles an ageing audience.
While nothing was confirmed, Faries said that there are “near-term discussions” across the entire Blizzard portfolio that will help to bring the studio’s titles “to new audiences in a high calibre way”, teasing a continued relationship with “Hollywood or film and TV”. Could we see a Diablo TV show? Maybe.
As for the next mainline game in Blizzard’s ARPG series, former head of Diablo Rod Fergusson claimed that the game won’t be “eternal”. “I think Destiny tried and did that like, ‘This is a ten-year game’, and then they quickly were not,” he told IGN in an interview.
Additionally, in a now-deleted tweet by former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, it was stated that players wouldn’t have to “wait so long” between releases in the series. Diablo 2 launched in the year 2000, Diablo 3 released 12 years after in 2012, and the latest game didn’t launch until 2023.
With this in mind, we might actually see the next game in the series before 2030, although that all depends on how well the current game can support itself for.
