07 June 2023 , 10:00
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With Diablo 4 now out, Activision Blizzard is already thinking about and discussing future ways it intends to support the game.
Diablo 4 officially launched on PlayStation, Xbox and PC worldwide yesterday following multiple rounds of marketing and stress-testing beta weekends. And while you’d think that developer Activision Blizzard would be focused on having a smooth launch now that the servers are being flooded, Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson has been doing the interview rounds and discussing in detail how this already mammoth-sized game will be supported in the future.
We already knew that Diablo 4 would be the subject of multiple seasonal updates quarterly throughout the year, similar to how seasons are handled in Diablo 3. That said, in amongst his comments to the Kinda Funny Xcast Fergusson let slip that Activision Blizzard is already deep into development of two major expansions. “We're working on expansion one, we're kicking off expansion two,” he said. “We're working on that now.”
Diablo 4 being the first game in the series to be an always online, live-service style game means that the pressure is on for the team to get its expansions right. You only need ask Bungie about how difficult it is to keep players satiated given the poor reception to Lightfall, Destiny 2 ’s most recent story expansion. The last major expansion the franchise enjoyed came in 2014 in the form of Diablo 3’s Reaper of Souls, arriving two years after the base game released.
As well as seeing the series arrive on PS4 and Xbox One, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls saw a whole new act added to make up for the base game’s rather disappointing final act in Heaven. However, it was also in Reaper of Souls that The Necromancer class arrived in Diablo 3. That’s why, despite Rod Fergusson not explicitly mentioning new Diablo 4 classes in his comments, there’s a strong chance at least one of the two expansions teased could see a new character arrive sooner rather than later.
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As a Necromancer main myself, I can’t imagine traversing Diablo 4’s version of Sanctuary without being joined by my skeletal army of the dead companions or the ability to blow up corpses to send a cacophony of blood booming across the screen. That’s why I empathise with veteran Diablo players who are disappointed that their favourite class, be it The Crusader, Witch Doctor or another, not being included in Diablo 4 at launch.
Luckily, as mentioned in our own review for the game, Diablo 4 brings a great deal more flexibility to the five included character classes than has ever been made available before. My Necromancer needn’t play or look anything like your Necromancer who’s the same level, for instance, because I can choose to focus on Bone-specific abilities rather than, say, Blood or Shadow, and vice versa. This is sure to help take some of the sting out of certain fan-favourite classes appearing at launch.
When we recently interviewed art director John Mueller ahead of the game’s launch, we asked him about the prospect of future classes arriving in Diablo 4. “There’s always room around the campfire,” he teased. Taking this alongside Rod Fergusson’s comments to Kinda Funny makes me think there’s a heavy chance we’ll see at least one arrive alongside one of the two now-confirmed expansions.