Prior to the release of Diablo 4, developer Blizzard had said that expansions would almost certainly be part of the game's live service model, and now it sounds like the plan is to release a big DLC once per year.
The supposed confirmation comes from general manager Rod Fergusson, who, in an interview with Dexerto says "When you look at the launch of the game and this first season, we see that as building a foundation on which we can build for the future. So, as we look at our quarterly seasons, and we look at our annual expansions, those are the things that we’re really focused on for our live service."
Of course, "annual expansions" are often associated with MMOs. The likes of Final Fantasy 14 and The Elder Scrolls Online have been pumping out yearly DLC for, well, years, and it would seem that Diablo 4 wants a piece of that pie. Does this mean the game will finally be classed as an MMO? Eh, hard to say, but it's definitely a step in that direction. Maybe Destiny 2 provides a better comparison.
In any case, this is where big budget live service titles are heading. Diablo 4 has already received a bunch of free updates since its launch in early June, and seasonal updates (along with paid season passes) have added fresh adventures to the action RPG. It'll be interesting to see just how ambitious these expansions are.
Would you be up for Diablo 4 expansions? What would you want from them? Dream up a brand new character class in the comments section below.
[source dexerto.com]
Comments 40
Baldur's Gate 3 is out now, do people still play D4?
Completed S1 ~in August and maxed 4 characters to 100 - rogue and sorceress in pre-season, druid and necromancer in S1. Currently game's endgame is too damn boring. Nothing to do except early 70 hell-tides (to get all the ancient equipment) and dungeons for exp and glyphs. Progression is slow, better items are so rare and even though paragon does improve current build's stats and overall power each level after 80 I get more and more bored of the endless and useless loop. Even season's mechanics did not improve the situation, though hearts in jewelry are much better compared to gems.
Blizzard need to rework late-game progression and itemization, otherwise I see no need to buy new expansions even with new classes.
@General_Disarray D4 was fun... but i think i overly expected a masterpiece.
it just didnt sticked as much as the other diablos. Post game was... tiresome. We were literally falling asleep on the couch while grinding. lost 2 hardcore characters because of that hahaha
The game was a bit more than 100 canadian dollars here. let me guess, they want more money for an expansion ?
cause i dont feel i had a 100$ worth of gaming with D4.
the game was fun while it lasted, but man it got brainless grindy after we completed the story. Felt like i was playing Robotron with hires graphics.
Did they ever hire that season lead designer?
@Papa_Godzilla Diablo 3 and 4 are the only games I've ever fallen asleep while playing.
It happened twice with Diablo 3, but the setting for 4 looked so nice and everyone at work was raving about it at launch, so I jumped in again.
Same thing happened - Fell asleep while playing.
This is the game that thought me fomo is the wrong reason to spend money on anything.
Going by the ending i shell be buying these.
@Shepherd_Tallon I didn't bother finishing the main story of D3. It was that bad to me. I decided I'd rather play Path of Exile again for the 5 millionth time.
Skipped 4 because 3 was so terrible. And I really hate Blizzard.
Diablo 4 would've been probably more of a standout title in a weaker year for games, being okay at best in 2023 is not good enough.
@4th_at_EVO The fact it came out at the slowest time of the year made it more of a standout than it should have been.
People stay playing this trash
@General_Disarray yes. They aren't even the same type of game. Smh
Oh this whole comment section is full of folks who hate d4. Lol.
But I thought this was confirmed months ago.
Unfortunately D4 is boring, and they would need to reset all character progression to fix it. The top 5 issues are 1) Difficutly is too easy. Even starting at world tier 2 the game is a complete breeze. Instead of being cautious in each battle you just press a button until everything is beaten, then do it again a few steps later. No challenge = Boring. 2) Monsters level with you, making leveling up pointless. At level 5 it takes 6 basic hits to defeat a monster, and at level 50 it still takes 6 hits. There is no progression at all. 3) Stat values are too high and jump too much with each level, which makes the smaller stat increases from weapons/armor worthless. 4) Too many attributes. When you have distant damage, near damage, cold, fire, dark, poison, knockdown, etc.. you end up with most drops being for things you don't want. Just a lot of trash that you have to sift through 5) The amount of drops are way way too high. Go through one dungeon and your inventory becomes full of 'Rare' equipment that isn't rare at all. Combine that with the amount of attributes and you are doing trash clearing inventory work every half hour.
I don't know, man. Huge diablo fan (primarily 1+2) and I bought into the hype train and I wish I didn't. D4 is my biggest regret purchase in years. I'm not giving them anymore money. I hate the level scaling. It makes the whole game beginning to end feel the same. There's no moments like in D2 in maggot lair where based on the enemies and size of hallways that you need to change your strategy. D4 can be played blindfolded beginning to end just going off of audio cues.
@Shepherd_Tallon hahahaha exactly !
the thing is, i still like it. yeah its brainless grind, but it does it really well in a way hahaha
Might be a worthy game to comeback once it has evolved with updates and expansions.
D3 had an amazing expansion that really made the game better overall.
@Cutmastavictory heey i dont HATE it. i like it. it just feels unfinished. Or like a wine, not mature enough yet.
Diablo outrage is nothing new. D2 fans kicked off back in 2001 when the expansion came out, making higher tier difficulty levels harder which effectively gated those without the expansion from the necessary loot to play the game effectively, basically forcing them to buy it. Now it's remembered as a classic. Moral? I dunno. People are chumps or something probably.
I just deleted, 100+ Gb of repetitive alpha v. 0.0.3 game that started as a decent finished game.., of course the fanboys do not care about file size, grinding, boring, alpha state, etc. that's fine but please when it comes to another games that you hate, do not say anything, you look more like double standards people.
@Cutmastavictory god forbid people have fun in the comments. Next time I'll put a stick up my butt to view the comment section with your mentality.
Thank you for pointing out the error of my ways. I better go re-evaluate my whole life's decision process.
@Papa_Godzilla Exactly! I want to love it because of the setting, and when the game is fun it's fun, but that grind is just so uninteresting.
@General_Disarray i got 300 hours into D4 and BG isn’t a game i care about so yes. However i got lots of respect for BG3, i just don’t play turn based RPG’s. If i did i would be all over it. I do want to play Starfield and FF6 at some point tho. But for now it’s all about diablo 4 for many many more years to come.
@4th_at_EVO Diablo 4 being “ok” lead to it being the best selling Blizzard game ever and already over 10 million in sales. But i do agree 2023 has been a great year for games.
@Cashews Diablo 4 came out right around Street fighter 6 and Final Fantasy 16 in June. D4 sold 10 million copies and become the fast selling Blizzard title ever.
@Shepherd_Tallon Tbh we played the same game, D3, but I have played it for hundreds of hours and the only time I fell asleep playing it was when I couldn't put it down to go to bed... lol. Weird really as I can see why some people didn't get along with it, I just enjoyed the gameplay, music, world and generally find it super theraputic. The only thing that really worries me about D4 is the level scaling. Oh, and maintaining an active PS+ sub to play it. The online nature of it doesn't bother me but having pay a months sub for the odd time I might want to play for a few hours... nah that's not great.
@HonestHick sure, it may be their best selling title, but how much of those sales happened because it's simply Diablo and not because it's actually a good game? From all the ***** practices they keep throwing in it from purchasing battlepasses without confirmation and more MTXs, how could anyone possibly support such a gross company with such blatant disrespect to their staff and customers?
MS can keep his sh*t tbh. PoE not only is making everything better but they also aren't as predatory and they are owned by "big bad guy" Tencent 🤭
D4 is like a movie set version of the game it says that it is. It seems like it’s all there initially, but the further you get into it, you realize it’s all chipboard and being held together by some tape and twine. I’m sure if you paid for a couple seasons and yearly DLC’s, you might have a full game on your hands, some 200-300$ later…
@kyleforrester87 Oh I completely understand. One of my friends in work lives for Diablo. It's just not my cup of tea, as much as I want it to be. The world was the main draw for me and I love the character I was building in IV, it just couldn't pull me in beyond those things.
When you say therapeutic, that's interesting because, being fair, when I was enjoying the game I did find the grind to be almost cathartic and very relaxing at times.
@General_Disarray i don’t get into the politics of company’s. If i did i wouldn’t have anything to buy or play. Probably wouldn’t even own a home. There are millions and millions of hardcore Diablo fans like myself. Sure the game sold cause we wanted more Diablo. Like i said 300 hours in and I haven’t even got started. Diablo 2 and 3 have the longest play hours of any games in my history of gaming. This will add to it. Lot’s of people crapped on Last of us 2 cause it was supposedly woke. I played it without thinking that way and just enjoyed it as a game. The world has enough things going on to be divided. I don’t want to do that to my gaming hobby or i will start to miss out on fun experiences. For anyone that don’t like the game, that is fine. There is plenty to play in 2023 and from the looks of it still more great games to come and i can’t imagine 2024 will be a slow year. Plenty out there for us. 😀
@GymratAmarillo but if MS did keep it, then 3/4th of this site would complain and say that is money being taken away from Sony to put back into PS. I respect you not liking the game. But it has to come to PS. It’s just the right business move for all. I mean if MS starts to keep games just imagine what PSN would cost a year? Already went up 20-30% just because.
Diablo series defined 23 of my gaming history. I gave Diablo series 10000+ hours over it's 28 years of existence. So I can say "die hard fan" is weak words for my relation towards Diablo.
And with all this above you must admit how hard for me is to accept, that Diablo 4 is bad. Pretty bad game that doesn't deserve to hold the name "Diablo".
12 years of waiting for game that you complete in few hours, that is ok. But with maybe 1% replayability while I was hoping for another couple of years... that... that is even not ridiculous...
I must admit I really don't care for any datadiscs (dlc), any seasons (whose I don't care anywhere else), any updates of things that should be in game from release.... I just ... don't care Diablo 4 anymore...
@Cutmastavictory If people find it boring is that not their right to have a opinion?
@djlard I think there will never be a new real Diablo anymore. Its now about making the most money and that does not include games that you can keep playing without extra monetization. It's like free to play games there will always need to be way to make you spend money. The only difference isn't that they need the money because it's free it is because they need to make more and more money to please the investors and Bobby need it's extra bonus.
@GymratAmarillo MS and Tencent the only difference that the one is Chinese and the other is US they both are there for one thing and thats making money.
The game is so weird to me. 1-35ish was pretty fun but then it lost steam. Then, it gets fun again at like 45 when you do WT3, but boring at 50. Then, at like 55 or so and you move to WT4, it's fun again until like level 60, then there's nothing left yet they 'want' you to play to 100? Would be nice if the expenasions or even future seasons 'fix' that by giving you more to do 50+
@Flaming_Kaiser Unfortunately yes.
So it seems they purposefully left the base game unfinished so they could charge more for expansions that add some actual endgame content which should have been present from day 1.
@djlard Let me rephrase all the money but that is big corp they are all the same.
Well diablo is one of my all time fave franchises and i'll be very interested to see what they will release in terms of expansions. I understand that most people on here have a pathological disdain for anything blizzard but thats their choice so let them vent but i personally only play d4 at the moment as i love it and i just dont find the grind boring at all. That bloody battle pass is a joke though and really needs sorting out because the rewards are useless and the total lack of platinum earned is just insulting. I expect the usual suspects to tell me i'm a despicable gamer for playing this and proclaiming my love for the game..
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