Blizzard reportedly had Diablo 4 ready to announce at Blizzcon, but pulled it at the last moment

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BlizzCon 2018 started off in standard fashion, with the announcement of Warcraft 3: Reforged, a new Overwatch hero Ashe, and more. After teasing "multiple" Diablo projects were in the works a few weeks before the convention, Blizzard took to the stage to announce Diablo: Immortal, their latest entry into the Diablo series, which is mobile MMOARPG game. Fans who had expected a Diablo 4 announcement took their ire online, and showed their anger over the lack of a major mainline Diablo title being revealed. However, it seems that just prior to BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard might have actually had plans to unveil Diablo 4 for real, but pulled the game from being at the show at the last moment. According to sources "verified" by gaming site Kotaku, Blizzard's co-founder Allen Adham would have officially announced that Diablo 4 was in active development directly after Diablo: Immortal was shown (though no gameplay would have been shown). The reason for the reveal being pulled is supposedly due to Blizzard "not being fully prepared to commit to an official announcement", despite their previous statement that they definitely have multiple Diablo projects in the works. According to Jason Schreier, Kotaku's editor, Diablo 4 has been in the works for a "while", as the project has moved through different directors and teams in that timeframe.


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Rahkeesh

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I'd trust the "reskin" comments more if they came from people that actually played these Chinese games, and at least looked at recorded Immortal footage rather than the trailer. It seems to be coming from a place of ignorance and everyone is so quick to repeat it for whatever reason.

I don't doubt that Netease recycles a number of things like the UI, but at the end of the day, what matters is whether the gameplay and art is anywhere near Diablo standards or not. The real proof is in playing the game but the recorded footage I've seen feels an awful lot like D3 lite, which is basically the best you can hope for from a mobile Diablo ARPG.
 

eyeliner

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I only liked the first Diablo. I mean, really, what's so different gameplay wise that it warrants 4 games?
The story is laughable, so there can be only microtransactions added, so you can buy loin cloths for your virtual self and run around clicking stuff.
 

AtsuNii

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I saw clips however them saying that PC wasnt in their minds yet. I'm not sure of that was them trying to control the hype, but how they only annouched a mobile version was just a kick in the stomach for the hardcore diablo fans.
 

K3Nv2

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Hate brings in more attention, I assume everyone will forget about it one 4 releases or just skip to 6 so they can be even more satanic.
 

xdarkx

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My guess of Blizz not announcing D4 is because they don't want to be like Square Enix with their FF7 Remake announcement a few years back.
 

MasterJ360

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Maybe this translates to "They had D4 ready to be announced, but forgot they needed to make more sales off of D3 for the Switch first" lol
 

Hells Malice

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@Chary What do you mean by MMOARPG?
I know that TLoZ is classified as ARPG and love the franchise
So do you think I'll like this one?

Diablo is a lot different. It's more about killing hoards of enemies, collecting loot and slowly findings new and better gear.
They're both action combat but Diablo's combat is significantly different. You could pretty easily find Diablo 2/3 videos on youtube that show off what it's like, but it's definitely nothing like Zelda.
 

FAST6191

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Not be prepared to commit to a release date, demo, beta, platform list... all reasonably understandable but a last minute pull for a simple "we are working on it"? This is the same industry that gives us announcements of announcements of dates for trailers.

Anyway I really liked 1, 2 did some interesting things. 3 by virtue of the online only thing was skipped. If they were going to go back to basics and give me a nice LAN/co-op dungeon crawler (a rarity these days, plenty of great single player options but fewer multiplayer) I would have been happy.

Instead we get a churned out, most likely quick and dirty reskin, effort for andrios or whatever... oh well.
 

the_randomizer

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how so?? you say that they deserve hate for creating games?? that's entitlement at it's finest.
if you don't like it then don't buy it, that's how it works.

Nope, they deserve backlash for their "don't you have phones?" PR bullshit response. If people hate the game being locked to mobile only, that's their right because it's a dick move.
 

Sakitoshi

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Nope, they deserve backlash for their "don't you have phones?" PR bullshit response. If people hate the game being locked to mobile only, that's their right because it's a dick move.
isn't the same as any company releasing anything in their platform of choice?? does nintendo deserves a similar treatment for not releasing mario on pc?? how isn't that being entitled??
since they are announcing a mobile game it's pretty obvious that it wont release anywhere else.
 

Kigiru

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Part of me want to say that it sound plausible, but part of me is bugged by one thing...
> Kotaku
Sorry, i would rather believe that Aliens warped the timeline to replace Diablo 4 with Immortal than whatever Kotaku is saying. They are the last gaming info source that i consider truthful.
 

Taleweaver

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Sorry but I just don't believe this rumor. So they are supposedly "not being fully prepared to commit to an official announcement". I know that a lot of gamers go plain nuts over release dates and announcements, but this is just ridiculous. They simply didn't have anything to announce in that field, so some disgruntled game "journalist" pulled this shit out of his ass to create controversy.
Oh, but they were fully prepared to commit to a mobile game. At a conference full of PC gamers who paid to be there. So extremely out of touch.
It wasn't the only announcement, dude. Besides... How many of that audience do you think wouldn't have a fancy smartphone?
I get it : mobile games have a bad reputation. But their technological capabilities grow much faster than the pc, and the majority of issues isn't even there but in the monetisation department, so it can be fixed. They'd be stupid NOT to tap in that market.
 

Xzi

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It wasn't the only announcement, dude. Besides... How many of that audience do you think wouldn't have a fancy smartphone?
I get it : mobile games have a bad reputation. But their technological capabilities grow much faster than the pc, and the majority of issues isn't even there but in the monetisation department, so it can be fixed. They'd be stupid NOT to tap in that market.
Point is that they didn't have to announce that at Blizzcon. They could've announced it at any time before or after, and just mentioned D4 in the works during. I'd be pissed if I had paid for a ticket to that just to be condescendingly asked, "Do yOu GuYS NOt hAvE a PHonE?" However, since I know better than to expect anything of the Diablo team at this point, and since I've never been to Blizzcon, I don't really care. Still a massive failure in terms of pissing off their core audience.
 

Exavold

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I doubt can make a good """"""""true"""""""" Diablo game now, anyways.

They've lost the staff that made Diablo so good.
 

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