Planning for the near future is always wise when you're behind one of gaming's biggest franchises, but Diablo 4 producer and series manager Rod Fergusson has taken things a few steps further.
As part of an ongoing chain interview on Game File, Fergusson reveals that he and the team recently sat down to do some "long-range planning" with regards to Diablo.
"We're here for the long haul," he says. "I've created a roadmap — a 10-year roadmap... it was actually a 12-year [roadmap] — I can see this, this, this and this and all these different things that we can do, [which] is really inspiring."
At this point, it's worth noting that Diablo 4 is fast approaching its second anniversary, having launched in June 2023. It's widely believed that Blizzard will keep the action RPG ticking for years to come — as it did with Diablo 3 — but it goes without saying that a full decade is still a long period of time to properly consider.
"It's really exciting. We’re focused on what players want... I can’t tell you much more than that," Fergusson adds.
Diablo 4 itself has had plenty of ups and downs since its aforementioned 2023 release. Just last week, the reveal of a rather vague 2025 roadmap had some players questioning the developer's commitment, and so we're sure that Fergusson's comments will be scrutinised as well.
What do you want from Diablo going forward? How do you think the series will look 10 years from now? Regret storing a decade's worth of loot inside just one chest in the comments section below.
[source gamefile.news]
Comments 16
Randomly purchased this in a sale recently. I didn’t know what to expect as I had never played Diablo before, but it was really good! Finished the campaign last night and will be trying the first expansion at some point.
These 10 year road maps really are getting tiring. It must be something absurd like less than 2% of any player base that actually sticks around for that long. By the time you get to the latter years, the roadmap has normally gone out of the window because the playerbase fell off and the devs are in panic mode trying to draw players back in (looking at you Destiny 2).
Next to no one is playing Diablo anymore. It completely died when poe 2 released.
Rod Fergusson also said there’d be an expansion every year and when the next one was announced for 20026 he said “I never promised that(expansion every year)”
I enjoyed playing it with friends, up to the end of the story and a little thereafter. Dipped into a couple of seasons, to see what was different, but I really lost interest and just couldn't fathom the slog to get my character to level 100. Think I bailed around lv 70 and never went back!
@Boxmonkey you are talking out of your prune chute buddy. Diablo 4 has a very large player base but yes a lot of people jumped ship to PoE2 including myself but to proclaim d4 dead is a massive exaggeration.
"We’re focused on what players want..." ??? when? in 2030? maybe? Blizzard never listen what players want, because if so, D4 would look much much different... That game completely lost any direction and Blizzard only rely on players who don't care, just clicking. Fact that no major improvements were made since two weeks after release (and those were rather downgrades) only confirms that Blizzard just don't want to touch that anymore and only focus on dumb seasons.
@djlard there have been loads of improvements since d4 launched. The game is not perfect granted and I much prefer the diablo 2 approach but d4 is a really cool game and I still jump on it with a few mates.
@Northern_munkey And what has improved in endgame? Is there something to collect? Or you are just grinding... for nothing?
@ZeroSum i rather a 10 year road map than annual releases
@djlard it's the nature of diablo..the endless grind and the challenge of the higher torment levels. I've been a diablo player since way back and the formula had always been the same. Yes endgame content is a bit lacking granted but to say no improvements have been made is just silly.
@Boxmonkey
Hahaha. Funny! Trust me, plenty are playing, and D4 will keep rolling for many years still. PoE2 is good, but i actually went back to D4. PoE2 still feels very much like a work in progress, i can't be arsed to play it anymore. I'll probably revisit it though in a year or two.
@Boxmonkey There is still a good amount of players playing. It must have been a pretty good success as it crossed $1 Billion in sales last September.
Just bring some more socialing and a decent LFG system to the game would help alot. I kinda feel so alone playing even with so many players around.
@Northern_munkey juice out whole Diablo 4 in 200 hours is pretty low in comparison with 5000+ hours in Diablo 2 and still not discovered everything. And I'm very casual player...
@djlard I've got almost 300 hours in d4 and I've not seen everything. I guess it's horses for courses. D4 is pretty much what I expected it to be and I wasn't disappointed with it. Maybe my expectations are not as high as others.
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