Word around it will be released in 2020! Are you exited? It will be soon!!!
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Another one fallen from his cradle some time ago …
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Yes, I exited the hype train long ago.
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Yes.
When they announced Diablo 3, my first thought was, man Diablo 4 is gonna be awesome.
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Classic. 
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with 1408 posts…I think not. LOL.
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Amateur trolls.
/yawn
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While I would call it unlikely; I do think it’s possible that we could see it in 2020. I know most Blizzard games don’t get released until 3-4 years after the announcement but I think this one is a special case.
The rumors last year suggested that D4 was “rebooted” in 2016 and that they pulled a D4 announcement from Blizzcon at the last minute (hence the hype post from Nev leading up to BC, followed by the temper your expectations post right before) because it wasn’t quite ready and they didn’t want to announce it with no playable demo.
Follow that with the reorganizing teams and halting production on the SC FPS in order to focus on D4 and OW2 and they could very well have sped up production time from their usual pace.
TLDR: They potentially have a game that started development as early as 2016 and probably had an accelerated development schedule so 2020 is not a completely unrealistic release window.
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Are you aware how contradicting statements you’re making or it’s the humor of all these? Pretending that you gonna play diablo 4 preview open alpha a week later after Blizzcon? What do you think investors’ reaction would be if company release early to ignore hype build up to cover costs? It’s a sequel you’re talking about, advertisement campaign will be costly else it will be huge flop on release.
I don’t get this sense of humor any more because all of you saying the same thing like you have inside information or became experts by reading Kotaku articles. I don’t get this at all. This whole thread is a joke but when I see people commenting such nonsense, I’m astonished that this still works.
Diablo 3 stood in development hell for 7-8 years. Blizz North shut down in '05 then Jay and co had to start the whole thing from scratch. Announcement made in '08 and release was at 4 years later at '12. It was a Diablo sequel; one year after announce is an unrealistic release window by all means.
Considering; it doesn’t cover the costs to build up hype and game engines are more complex than 7-10 years ago.
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@ naksiloth
You appear to be attempting to put a whole lot of words in my mouth.
1 - I started my whole post by saying that I thought it was unlikely.
2 - I clearly said “rumor” for a reason; I never once said I had insider information.
3 - I said the rumor was that they wanted a demo last year; I never said anything about an open Alpha in two weeks.
4 - If they do indeed release early I believe it will because they’re rushing it in response to last years PR fiasco (which for the record I think is a bad Idea).
All I’m saying is I can see it being plausible to be released in late 2020; personally I don’t think it will happen; in fact I would be surprised with a 2021 release; hence my first statement.
No I’m sure you used the word “possible” which I rejected by looking at a past examples like Diablo 3. At the case of another sequel like SC2, that period is still 3 years from announce; '07 to '10 release.
There are online explanations from game sector experts and real game journalists on how things work in multi-million dollar companies. You should give them an ear instead of online articles written by mainstream media.
I explained “first year release” is not a plausible, possible or a profitable tactic at the terms of company policy due to how expensive to run advertisement campaigns for them and still profit.
I simply told you that it doesn’t make any sense, I’m not sticking any word in your mouth.
You can not goad them into rushing stuff by holding up past drama, that’s not how that works. If that’s what you meant of course. In case it works that means company is unreliable and gives up under pressure easily which will ruin their work synchronization… And perhaps investors’ trust.
“D4 next year or riot” is nothing but a breeze to them; it will be released when it’s ready. I don’t really care what Le Monde writes, if those interviewed people were to give exact dates to a mainstream media, they’d be expelled from the sector.
You’re right, I did indeed use the word possible initially and in retrospect that’s probably a better word than plausible. But you still seem to be getting a different interpretation of my post than what I intended (at least it looks that way to me).
For the most part I agree with almost everything you’re saying. I just don’t think that a 2020 release is completely impossible. Unlikely, yes (I’d give it >5% chance, maybe even >2%), but that does literally mean it is still possible.
If D4 has been in full development since 2016 (that’s not even including any resources that were reused from old developments),
If they increased the people working on it (I believe they said as much when they announced all the recent layoffs and restructuring),
If they give in to the pressure following a huge PR nightmare,
then yes they could in theory, if they wanted to, release the game by the end of next year.
That’s a whole truckload of ifs and personally I don’t think it will be released anywhere close to that, but it is still possible.
Also for the record the development time on D3 doesn’t really line up with development times in more recent years. (Eg: Overwatch was announced in 2014 and released in 2016. HotS, including when it was first started as Blizzard: All Stars still only took 4 years (2011 - 2015) to develop. WoW expansions have been released every 2 years (since WotLK in 2010). Starcraft II chapters were released in 2010, 2013, and 2015.) Diablo 3 is the outlier in Blizzards game list.
All these 3 options are not profitable by any aspect or stretch of sense.
It can be in development since '16, yet a full fledged AAA title won’t be released before full 5-6 years. Intention of increasing the team member count can be a nice indication, yet still I remember key positions from job postings to be filled on unannounced Diablo project from months ago. And if company can be easily caved in from fan pressure, their lifespan won’t be long at the short term.
Hence why don’t expect a '20 release if they announce it this year.
Indeed.
No. Without an advertisement campaing game will flop and without a profit, they won’t move an inch further. Are you doing this for humor or… what? This started to get funny with huge stretches everywhere.
Are you really stuck on something you read on Le Monde or other mainstream media? I’ll repeat again; no such thing. You can not goad them into releasing something early and ignore profits for investors just because fans started an outcry.
Because it’s a new intellectual property and NOT a follow up game in the same series.
They’re expansions, not another game; it runs on the same old engine sparing some improvements here and there. If there were to be a “WoW2” don’t expect it to be released next year after announce.
You can do the math yourself. How many second or third games in the same franchise do Blizzard have? I just told you sequels (or perhaps prequels, unless they’re a new spin-off) run a bigger advertisement campaign and it’s costly than releasing a new property.
Still investors expect profits with growth and no amount of “ifs” can make them give up on their money.
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Hey Naksiloth, chill out. It’s just an opinion.
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Overwatch was released 1.5 years after announcement. Diablo 4 was on the verge of being announced last year, so can you imagine it coming out 6 months from now?
If there is no offline option, I dont care when d4 will be released…at all or ever…
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Oh, what would Epicurus say.
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This is what i think. If that info is true (d4 developing started before 2018 blizzcon but announce cancelled) it means d4 developing already started and can be released in 6-7 months.
Also im pretty sure they will announce it at blizzcon 2019 because last year they made a blog post about “unannounced diablo project are ongoing” before blizzcon to break our hype. That meant “we wont announce d4 this year”. But now they didnt do that. So they will announce it.
Blizzard uses the online only formula as a way of preventing pirating of their games so I wouldn’t hold my breath for an offline mode but hey, stranger things have happened.
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You don’t need years to build hype. That’s a disproven myth. Fallout 4 released four and a half months after announcement and crushed it. Borderlands 3 just had a similar announce-release window and killed it as well, despite all the negative PR built up even before the announcement. Proving even negativity around a studio is irrelevent, as is currently the case with Blizzard, when you have something exciting for fans.
Marketing actually saves far more money doing a big reveal followed by a short turn around. Especially in regards to titles whose name alone sells a couple million copies. Which Diablo is one of those titles and Blizzard is likely still one of those developers. Gearbox did their publicity leading up to release perfectly, other than the bumpy/bad moments leading up to the reveal.
People have short attention spans these days. A long build-up to release can have the opposite impact. Especially with the massive titles due to be released in the next 6 months or so. Adding their name into that list of releases would likely be far more beneficial than getting forgetten in the haze of them. Especially as the third and final in the series of releases.
Getting it out before the release of next gen consoles is also smart. It can allow them to hit up Sony for cash in exchange for cross-buy, as well as MS if they announce a similar release date soon. That would benefit all parties, as new consoles rarely release w/ day 1 AAA multiplayer games.
If it is still years out, it would frankly be a waste of time to announce it. Personally, I’m not going to waste my time getting excited for something when I have a backlog of games and two of the most interesting games in years on the horizon. You tell me it’s coming out soon and it becomes a priority. I’m also more likely to pre-order bc I don’t have years to develop an opinion on the drip feed of content. I have to base the decision on the quality of the last game in the franchise. And despite the terrible release of D3, it’s a great game.
Tl;dr version: Long build ups to release are bad for everyone. The industry is switching to these faster releases bc they actually BUILD hype, not kill it or lead to disappointment. After all, the longer fans wait, the more expectations grow.
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