The announcement of Diablo 5 at BlizzCon caught many fans off-guard almost as much as the Spring 2029 release window. The Lord of Terror has been absent throughout Diablo 4, barring the latest season’s boss fight, so seeing him return in such a big way is great for fans.
However, it seems that influenced the decision to create a sequel. As executive producer Matt Zitterman explained to GameSpot, “Who are Diablo players? Why are they playing Diablo? What do they want out of a Diablo game?
“That is a really critical step in the early conceptual phase for a game, even before you’re thinking about, ‘should we make this an expansion? Should we make it a sequel? How do we do this?’ Really deep understanding of who the players are.”
Of course, it also took feedback from those who played Diablo 4 and concluded early on that “some deeply structural changes” were required to “achieve what we wanted to achieve with this game.” Suffice it to say that an expansion would have made all this challenging.
However, Diablo as the sole big bad has plenty of appeal, and a new story involving him warrants a new game. “Diablo is the main villain. Diablo is the guy that we want to tell a real story about. We want to tell a story that’s on par with, and hopefully exceeds, the story that we told with Lilith and Mephisto, and to do that in an expansion just didn’t feel right. We needed to give him his own game.” Hopefully, it turns out to be the series’ “best campaign ever.”
While Diablo 5 is a long way off, Blizzard has confirmed the story. Long story short, the Lord of Terror has won, Sanctuary is in ruins, and your haven is now a caravan that’s on the move with other characters. Procedural dungeons and the Demon Hunter and Monk classes return, but there’s also the new Plague Knight to dabble with.
The downside is that the team is so focused on the sequel that Diablo 4 will no longer receive any paid expansions. Seasons will continue, though, and they might shine some light on Diablo’s return. Time will tell.
