While Blizzard has offered plenty of post-launch support to Diablo 4 with seasonal content as well as two expansions – Vessel of Hatred and Lord of Hatred – the company has said that the action RPG won’t get any more expansions before Diablo 5’s 2029 launch. In an interview with PCGamer, game director Brent Gibson noted that the team is instead focused on developing more seasonal content for Diablo 4 alongside its work on Diablo 5.
“We’re all focused on [Diablo 4] seasons and getting to Diablo 5. We feel like we told the Story of Hatred. We had a great conclusion with Lord of Hatred with what we have with Mephisto, and we are moving towards telling the Story of Terror.”
In the meantime, the team wants to continue working on Diablo 4’s story through seasonal updates. Since Diablo 5’s story will take place a century after the events of Diablo 4, the development team has plenty of time to explore various other narrative threads for the game. To that end, Gibson said that continuity will be an important thing for the company going forward.
“The events of Diablo 5 happen 100 years after everything that’s happening with Diablo 4, and so that gives us a lot of room to kind of still ride the wave with all the fans on where the story can go as we make our way there. So, continuity is something that we’re really excited about, but we don’t necessarily have a perfect picture on exactly where that’s going to go because we want to see how fans are reacting season to season.”
On the subject of whether the Diablo franchise will end up with a comparable fate to Path of Exile and its sequel, Gibson noted that it’s possible, and that the company doesn’t have any plans to shut down Diablo 4’s servers after the release of Diablo 5, especially if the former still has players. He also brought up how Blizzard has continued to support Diablo 2: Resurrected alongside Diablo 4.
“I think you can expect that—you know, Diablo 4 players, they love the game; there’s tons of them out there. We’re continuing to support the game for a very long time.”
Diablo 4 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Blizzard confirmed over the weekend that it is also making its way to Nintendo Switch 2 on September 15th. The date coincides with the kick off of Diablo 4’s next season – Season of Hell’s Legacy – which also happens to celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary.
Among the content players can look forward to with the season are ways to go back to iconic locations from the franchise’s past, like the original Diablo’s Tristram Cathedral, and locations from Diablo 2 like the Worldstone Chamber and the Durance of Hate. Progression will also see some upgrades, like War Plans being shared among all of a player’s characters, and the Rebirth system returning.
For more on Diablo 4, check out our reviews of its launch version and of its two expansions – Vessel of Hated and Lord of Hatred.
