This is Season 2. The patch and updates will be quite huge so it’s only a number changing from 1.1.4 to 2.0, which is normal.
These numbers are also arbitrary. They follow a version considering their dev tools, updating the version. It might aswell be 2.099423. And it won’t matter.
From all of Blizzard’s past games whenever they patched on, they only switch the first-most number before the decimal is when an expansion happens, case in point: Diablo III, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, etc.
It might be pure speculations at this point, but I won’t be surprised if an expac is looming on the horizon (my guess is as soon as S2 is done).
Same thing happened for D3 when they were pre-patching before a new expac (Reaper of Souls), the pre-patch before the expac included the overhaul in itemization, paragons, etc.
They are working on the expansion a team is dedicated to that. But it is probably nowhere near ready to be shown. Don’t think they will rush it either considering the game right now.
Perhaps, but they did state that expansions will be a yearly affair, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if they dropped it right after Season 2, given it’ll end sometime in mid-to-late January.
I would not be surprised at all if the 1st expansion (with more details) is officially reveled at Blizzcon, with a future release date. We should already be in s2 by Blizzcon. They will need something Diablo related to talk about.
Shut up and take my money! <3
This is the most likely scenario, but it would be wise of Blizzard to not do that at all. I don’t see the announcement of a paid expansion going well when the game is not in the best shape. Season 2 will probably fix a lot wrong with it, but it’s unlikely it’ll be enough to quell player discontent.
Yeah the reaction to an early expansion being shown will be most likely -
“I’m not paying for QoL,fixes and crappy itemization”.
They shouldn’t rush the expansion until the game is in a good place.
Who knows, maybe Blizz might give the first expansion away for free while the subsequent expansions will be paid.
One can hope, but I doubt it.
I have a strange feeling in my gut the expansion will be arriving sooner than we think.
It’s a nice thought, but it’s still unlikely. If anything, the state of the game is incentive to push the expansion out sooner and market it as a revitalization.
Wanna know why I think that? Because that’s exactly what Activision is doing with their other flagship title, Call of Duty. Modern Warfare II was slated to get an expansion this year, but several design choices baked into the game were deeply flawed and resulted in the game bottoming out in player interest and engagement. Now that expansion is being coined as a premium $70 release with one of its main selling points being a reversal of 80% of MWII’s design choices. It’s very clear this was a last minute decision because there are characteristics about it that make sense when you contextualize it as an expansion, such as the campaign following the story beats of Modern Warfare II (2009) and it having no new original maps at launch, only remastered versions of all MWII (2009) maps.
All this to say: Activision will likely coin the first expansion to Diablo IV as a comeback of sorts and people will eat it up because, for some reason, this industry and community loves a comeback story. Hell, you could type in any failed/middling live-service game from the last 6-7 years into YouTube’s search engine, and the top videos will probably be something along the lines of “X is UNRECOGNIZABLE in 2023!”
They could show the new zone, class and boss with a cinematic and a release date of 6/6/24. That still gives them more time to work on the base game. Remember they have several teams working on different things.
There is no doubt in my mind this is what’s going to happen as Blizzcon is next month and we will be deep into season 2 by that point. The floorplan shows an entire room dedicated to Diablo and I’m pretty sure D3 and D2R aren’t on the agenda.
What’s up gramps? This is exactly what will happen.
Very doubtful they will release an expansion that soon.
That’s becasue you are one of the enthusiasts on these forums, a segment of players that is relatively small. You are not the general gaming population who doesn’t really care about this stuff.
It will be interesting to see just how many of the D4 quitters will purchase the expansion.
Soon after complain about it and demand a refund like they did with D4. 
I was thinking about you and Oblivion just the other day, I don’t see you two much anymore.
I don’t really know what enthusiast is supposed to mean here, but Blizzcon appeals to a very particular crowd and you’d be fooling yourself to think there isn’t considerable overlap between the people going to Blizzcon and the people that exist in forum spaces speaking about Blizzard games, AKA Blizzard’s more hardcore/dedicated userbase. Your average casual gamer dad isn’t going to go to that. If Blizzard walks out onstage and tries to sell a Diablo IV expansion while the game is currently struggling, there will be backlash. I’m already preparing for a “Don’t you guys have phones?” moment if they do.
…are not the only audience for Blizzcon announcements. Anyone who gets outraged about a BlizzCon xpac announcement is either farming views or just generally trolling. We already know they are working on an expansion. We already know it will be out next year. We can be 99.44% certain it will cost money. Getting outraged about any of those already-known things because they give us more information at BlizzCon is just not a sincere response.
Now, if S2 is disappointing and the xpac announcement seems disappointingly small in scope, that’s new info to be outraged over. I’m sure plenty of people will assume both are true without regard for actual contents of S2 or the announcement.
The decimal places usually mean
major.minor.patch
1.0.0 => 2.0.0 = major
1.0.0 => 1.1.0 = minor
1.0.0 => 1.0.1 = patch
I think if they rushed a expac it’d be to rescue the game or fix loot, something like that
Anyone tuning into Blizzcon whether through the live-stream or in-person/digitally is most certainly the primary audience for a Blizzcon announcement.
If your argument is “the casual gamer dad who hears about the expansion announcement in passing won’t care,” I mean you’re certainly right in your assessment, but do you really think that’s what’s going to be reported on and circulated the next day?
No. The headlines following a D4 expansion announcement will be akin to “Diablo IV players are incensed about new expansion as the game still misses several features from the base game.” It’ll be a major publicity issue for Blizzard and will backfire the same way Diablo Immortal backfired five years ago when they announced it.
People are allowed to be frustrated about Blizzard trying to push a paid-for expansion while the base game continues to fall apart, even if it’s public knowledge that it was coming. To say we can’t because of that tidbit is kind of ludicrous.
People are allowed to do whatever they want. But complaining that the devs owe them a free expansion because the base game only provided 2-5x the amount of hours of entertainment of any other game this year and then got boring is not reasonable. And getting freshly outraged about it because they have it at BlizzCon when there’s already been official statements that it is happening would just be trolling. But yes, there will be tons of people farming views over it.