Diablo IV Quarterly Update - August 2022
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The latest quarterly update for Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo IV talks about the game's post-launch support and monetization philosophy. In short, after Diablo IV launches, you can expect Seasons similar to those of Diablo III and a heap of cosmetic, but not pay-to-win, microtransactions.
So, here's a quick intro from the game's director Joe Shely, and you take it from there:
Hello and welcome to our third Diablo IV Quarterly Update of 2022. We hope you enjoyed last quarter's dive into the playstyles of our final launch class, the Necromancer. That blog and our previous updates can be read here if you missed out.
Today we'll be talking about some of what’s coming to Diablo IV after the game ships. This is often referred to as a live service, and we have ambitious plans here. Our associate game director for live service, Joseph Piepiora, and our director of product, Kegan Clark, are here to talk details. Everything they describe is in addition to delivering the complete Diablo IV experience, the rich endgame features you expect at launch, and regular expansions that continue the story.
Many of you enjoy the Seasons in Diablo II: Resurrected and Diablo III and have asked for more extensive season support. We agree one of the most fun ways to play Diablo is through Seasons, so we're making the first one available soon after launch and building a dedicated team to bring you up to four Seasons a year, each with major new features, questlines, enemies, legendary items, and more.
Diablo IV's Seasons are modeled after those of Diablo III. When a new season begins, all the characters from the prior season are moved to the Eternal Realm, where you can keep playing, leveling up, and collecting loot. To play in the new season, you’ll create a fresh character and experience the new seasonal features and content while leveling up alongside other players. This, along with capping paragon points in Diablo IV, ensures that your effort and skill—measured by both dexterity and theorycrafting —determine how powerful your character becomes. It also allows players who missed the last season to participate. This season design requires that all sources of character power come from playing the game, so you will not be able to pay for power in Diablo IV.
You can read about our monetization philosophy below, along with details on how the Cosmetics Shop and optional Season Pass support and enhance Seasons.
We hope you enjoy this update and look forward to your thoughts and reactions. Later this year, we'll be testing our endgame systems. We'll also be testing features that enable players who have completed the game's campaign to flag it as completed for new characters they create and allow characters on the eternal realm to contribute to seasonal progress. Finally, stay tuned for a winter blog.
We're grateful to have you with us on this journey. Thank you for playing the games we make.
-Joe Shely,
Game Director, Diablo IV
