Diablo IV Release Date Revealed
New reports say that Diablo IV will be released in April 2023.
Things are forever cooking at Activision Blizzard’s kitchen; the Overwatch 2 launch was muddied by a DDoS attack, and that news was overshadowed by news of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II’s massive success. Additionally, the company is preparing to launch the next World of Warcraft expansion, and now we got news about Diablo 4‘s potential release date, which is just months away — rumors suggest that the game will become playable in April next year.
According to Destructoid, the most recent episode of the XboxEra podcast suggested that Blizzard could be planning on launching Diablo 4 — a sequel to the legendary Diablo franchise — as soon as April next year. The same episode revealed that pre-orders would open in December, most likely following the Game Awards show later this year. Pre-orders are likely to follow a tier-pricing, including the base, heroic, and some other type of premium or collector’s edition of Diablo 4.
It’s somewhat difficult to imagine that the next Diablo installment is just mere six months away, considering that we’ve seen very little footage of the game so far, though Blizzard wasn’t shy about posting their progress on the game’s blog page. According to our previous report, both Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 were rescheduled to launch in 2023, but the latter already went live, so live, or at least a PTR (Blizzard’s version of public beta) version of the game becoming available in April wouldn’t be so surprising after all.
From what we know so far, the game is likely to be a live service, just like its predecessor. However, Blizzard already announced dialing down on pay-to-win services, like loot boxes and other types of “gambling” mechanics, following the backlash it received regarding Diablo Immortal — which would cost up to $100,000 to play properly. Blizzard already announced Diablo 4 as a full-price game without any free-to-play-pay-to-win mechanics. Gamers can certainly spend money in-game, but those purchases might be tied to cosmetics instead of paying for power.
It was previously announced that Diablo 4 would feature the same Season Journey model featured in Diablo III, which pushes the player’s progression further through questing and completing various in-game challenges. This would allow gamers to progress through the season and earn enough gold and seasonal gear required for end-game content. Of course, this is all still in development, and we don’t know how and if these systems will function as advertised when the game launches, but time doesn’t tell lies.
It’s easy to be skeptical of Blizzard, especially following the turmoil within the company, which involved employee abuse and a ton of high-profile departures from the company. This also includes an insider trading scandal amidst the company’s deal with Microsoft worth nearly $70 billion for the acquisition of Activision Blizzard as a whole, along with the company’s intellectual property. So, Halo owns Call of Duty now, huh?
Still, everything we currently know about Diablo 4 looks just like everything we ever wanted from the game and more.
Hopefully, Blizzard won’t do something to disappoint the fans after it finally caught some break with its titles — nearly all of its major titles have been invigorated with an increased player count. Diablo 4 is rumored to launch in April 2023 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC platforms.
