Diablo 4 Development Ramping Up
Over the past month we've been seeing an increase in rumors surrounding the much anticipated Diablo 4. Earlier in June, we saw Kotaku post another bombshell of an article stating that a previously unknown Starcraft FPS game had been cancelled and that the team developing that game had been split to help with Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. While it shouldn't come as any surprise that Blizzard is working on the next Diablo, it is telling if they're starting to move more and more developers to the project.
When games are early in production, they only require a small group of senior developers to tackle the big 'pillars' of design. Things like the game engine, lighting, concept art, etc. are usually figured out first and then mid-level and associate-level developers are brought in later to help take the game from concepts to functioning. As a game gets closer and closer to alpha/beta testing the development team can swell. Blizzard has been known to do this in the past and has temporarily funneled developers from different teams in order to get games ready for release. This may be what's happening now. According to Kotaku, the Starcraft FPS game was specifically cancelled so that Blizzard could increase the team sizes for Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. These types of rumors make a major announcement at BlizzCon 2019 seem more likely.
In addition to this announcement of internal team movements, there was recently another article from the French news site Le Monde that stated that an early version of Diablo 4 had been shown to staff at the Versailles branch of Blizzard. This is an indicator that Blizzard is happy with the current iteration of Diablo 4 and has begun showing it internally across the globe to give employees an idea of what the future title will look like. Compare this to the rumors that last year Blizzard was showing Diablo 4 internal, but only to staff at Irvine, it is building the case that this year's BlizzCon will finally deliver the announcement Diablo fans have been waiting for since the launch of Reaper of Souls.
While this is great news to see, there are still 4 months left between now and Blizzcon. A lot can (and probably will) happen that will affect whether there will even be an announcement this year. I hope there is something to announce, I'm just not sure, yet, it will be for D4.
I really hope they aren't going once again decide to completely overhaul the game 2-3 months before Blizzcon, like, rumor has it, they did last year. Still, I probably won't buy virtual ticket this year. They still owe me those 50 bucks I spent on Immortal announcement.
We could easily get a D4 announcement at Blizzcon 2019 and it could easily turn out to be an FPS game.
Don't get hyped up until we see a D4 gameplay on PC!
True, but there were rumors of it being a Witcher 3 like game before. I could be down for that.
BTW, D3 on consoles is what saved it for me. Every new season, there's a new build to try. It's just so natural on PS4, but I understand some prefer PC. Can't we have both
Honestly, This year is one of those years that seems like it just might be worth the ticket.
Potentially we will get D4, OW2, New Wow Expansion, Diablo: Immortal, new hearthstone expansion most likely, and who knows what else.
Would be cool if they opened up D3 to modding after they announce D4. Keep base game pure but allow people to mod it for single player and private games. This would go along way to improving dynamic between players and devs. To be honest I don't expect them to be that cool but who knows, nothing will surprise me at this point.
...announcement ! They will show some stupid CGI-trailer - like D3 (never seen that content advertised) - playable game one or more years later !
I wonder, what would happen if they did something a bit crazy and went for something more akin to god of war (ps4)? I do wonder if the current diablo 1 - 3 style of gameplay can still be incredibly relevant in 202X.
We shall see what happens at blizzcon
If Diablo 4 looks like Witcher / Dark Souls I think I still love it! DIABLO ISN'T THE NAME, DIABLO IS A MARK!!! \m/
Well, we have PoE on top a-rpg / hack n slash now, devs says PoE 4.0 will be created TO RIVALIZE WITH DIABLO 4! So if we get Dark Souls like Diablo title things can get messed IN GOOD WAY
I do agree, I'm so excited for this. DIABLO(*_*) I hope it's up to our expectations.
I don't think immortal will be released to blizzcon, DLC immortal to Blizzcon is plausible. Miss 5 months to blizzcon adn immortal is just ready according to Netease, why wait 5 months to release ? Wow has taken release date August 15th i want rember you