but nothing for Diablo’s anniversary. 
"There’s actually millions of people that still play Diablo 3.” . . . . “Even when Diablo 4 came out, some players were cannibalised and brought over to D4, but there’s still a massive player base for Diablo 3,”
- Matthew Cederquist - Feb. 13, 2026 - Eurogamer (sorry it will not let me post a link to the article.)
if there are, which I kinda doubt, the vast majority can’t play very much at all as there aren’t even 1000 people on the rankings for every set 2 months into the season.
Not everyone cares about the ladder. In fact it’s pretty obvious that a lot players don’t complete the season journey or the alter,
Not everyone, sure, but if there was millions of people playing, you would think you would easily find at least a 1000 that would do a single greater rift during the course of a season for every set.
Here’s the link:
https://www.eurogamer.net/millions-of-people-still-play-diablo-3-insists-blizzard
Now, do any of you wonder why they released an article like this after the stream or we’ll question player count?
A few notes: Diablo 3 is available in a few different platforms including PC and a pair of old generation consoles where servers track activity. Additionally, game currently have four different modes (or six; NS and Season; mixed with SSF and Hardcore) across four regions; Europe, U.S., Asia and China which has its own separate server.
Yep, I suspect the console market makes up a good portion of that ‘millions’ number.
It’s a very easy to pick up ARPG on console.
Between consoles, and Diablo 3 still being region locked, on top of the addition of the SSF mode segmenting the playerbase, it makes sense you wouldn’t see as high of numbers on a single leaderboard for season. But yeah, these games fluctuate. I play all 3 of the main seasonal Diablo games, usually a week or so with D2 every other ladder (since it doesn’t offer any real updates/incentive to play every season) then 2-3 weeks each season with D3 and D4. D4 was getting me four weeks a season the first few, then that has tampered down. D3 has been the one that usually interests me the most these days.
Console, bots, and China can add huge numbers to the player count of Diablo 3. I would not be surprised if the player count in China alone is over 1 million players. But that also becomes tricky because Blizzard has a partnership with Netease (again), and any profits they make are going to be split.
Also the article itself does talk about the cannibalization or sharing of the player base. Some players go from Diablo 4 to Diablo 3 for a week when a new season starts. Some come from D2R to D3 when a new season starts. I’m not surprised at all by that, since I also come back to D3 from time to time after playing D2 and D4 more regularly. And that brings up the question… maximum player count is one thing, but what about playable hours? Or players sticking around? It’s much more likely someone would pay $25 for a new character if they actually plan on playing for an extended period of time. Would seasonal Diablo 3 players that jump in for a couple of days at the start of a season be willing to dish out $25 for 5-8 hours of game play? Or however long a casual D3 player may play?
I guess “no longer in development” really means just that.
Well, all those players are spread over 3 regions + China, along with 4 modes for each region, sc/hc, regular/ssf. On top of that, nothing new, all themes the same. Wager most people are only playing the meta build or the free Haedrig set. No need to play trash no-set DH for the sake of playing no-set DH.
On top of all this, I would wager most people aren’t playing long enough to register more than a couple of solo GRs, if they even get past the character creation/rebirth screen. Could very well be 2 mil people logging on with a seasonal character, but I would wager less than 100k across all regions and modes doing anything of note.
Blizz math 101:
No MTX = No love.
it’s their own damn fault. If they would have made a battle pass every season with some wings, a cosmetic here and there or a pet let’s say 5$, a lot of people would have paid. Heck if it would mean we still get patches id pay RN
I would have paid for extra stash tabs alone like in PoE… but the game ain’t designed to facilitate more stash space 
I don’t actually want anything for D3 except that Blizzard finally lets the seasons start and end in a 3 month rhythm, independently of everyone. Nobody in the D3 playerbase cares whether a D2 ladder starts, a D4 season or whether the Pope dies. The fact that D3 doesn’t get anything should actually show that D3 is not a competitor for the other games.
Sure. I’m finding myself on a leaderboard all of a sudden while casually approaching GR 100 a few days into a season.
I thunk the same about d2r until recently. So who knows!?
d2r has mtx? 
Aboshan says that a lot but it’s been brought to their attention several times that Blizzard said that there would be no more development for D2 once. Afterwards, we got a big update patch (1.10), more patches after, a remaster, and now a DLC. So it’s entirely possible something is cooking for D3. We just have to wait and see.
Everyone in D2 will eventually die out, heck they’re all over 80. Then they will eventually expand D3 with another release, expansion or rework, since most of us are still in their 60s.
Dang, that made me sad! 
I played D2 at launch and I’m not in my 80s. 
I played NES when it was new. I’m definitely not 100
If what he says is true, it’s an absolute financial and goodwill failure on this company to not provide further content updates. The Necromancer pack must have been a tremendous success, and they should do more character packs.
I turned 50 2 months ago. Now I have to QQ 
because of you!
