Diablo 4 may be the last Diablo game for quite some time

Diablo 4 made a surprise appearance at the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase with Blizzard confirming a 2023 release for the highly anticipated next installment in the action RPG franchise. But with the recent release of Diablo Immortal, and the criticism of its microtransactions, it forced Rod Fergusson, GM of the Diablo franchise, to make a statement regarding the game’s pricing and content.

The point of Rod Fergusson’s entire Tweet was to clear up some common questions that gamers were having right away and to also make it known that there will be no shortage of content over the years for Diablo 4. This sparks the idea that maybe Diablo 4 is going to be the last main Diablo game for quite some time.

If you take a look at the history of the Diablo franchise, you’ll notice a pattern from Blizzard. The original Diablo was released in 1997. Three years later, Diablo 2 was then released in the year 2000. Diablo 2 did get the Lord of Destruction expansion pack in 2001, but it wasn’t until 11 years later that Diablo 3 would release in 2012. A whole decade passed by before Diablo fans got any new content regarding the Diablo franchise.

Diablo 3 did spawn a total of two story expansions with those being Reaper of Souls in 2014 and Rise of the Necromancer in 2017. Fast forward a little bit more to 2021 and Diablo 2 and the Lord of Destruction expansion was remade. This was followed by a free-to-play Diablo Immortal in 2022. That is the entire Diablo franchise in a nutshell.

All of that has lead us to Diablo 4. Diablo 4 is scheduled to be released during 2023. If you don’t count remakes/side projects or DLC, the Diablo video games have all had a lot of time pass by between each released. From Diablo 2 to Diablo 3, 12 years passed by. From Diablo 3 to Diablo 4, 11 years is going to pass by as long as the release stays on schedule. We are talking about decades passing by between main game releases.

Since Rod Fergusson made it very clear that they are going to be supplying Diablo fans with tons of content over the years for Diablo 4, it makes sense that we don’t see a main installment in the franchise for potentially another decade or so. As long as Blizzard Entertainment continues to provide DLC, this shouldn’t be a problem then.

All I can say is that there is indeed a trend that has taken place over the course of their past few main game releases and that trend is most likely going to continue based off of what we have heard from Senior Vice President and General Manager Rod Fergusson himself.