Activision Blizzard has been showing the long-awaited Diablo 4 to its French employees. The creator of the popular franchise recently laid off nearly 800 team members back in February of this year. Recently, the French media have been reporting on the situation but (as a side note), they started to mention Diablo 4 and a new Overwatch title.
According to French news publication called Le Monde, Blizzard has apparently been showcasing Diablo 4 in Paris. According to an excerpt from Le Monde (translated by Google), it’s actually coming in 2020 … not any earlier than that.
Original excerpt from Le Monde:
Quid de l’avenir ? Les équipes de Blizzard Entertainment ont déjà eu le droit à une présentation du très attendu Diablo 4 et savent qu’un nouveau Overwatch est dans les tuyaux. Mais aucun ne sortira avant 2020, au mieux, et les salariés de Versailles ignorent s’ils en verront la couleur. « Activision Blizzard fera moins de bénéfices, mais fera quand même beaucoup de bénéfices », veut croire un vétéran.
Rough translation to English:
What about the future? The Blizzard Entertainment teams have already had the right to a presentation of the highly anticipated Diablo 4 and know that a new Overwatch is in the pipes. But none will come out before 2020, at best, and the employees of Versailles do not know if they will see the color. “Activision Blizzard will make less money, but still make a lot of money,” said a veteran.
Now, if there’s any merit to this news, this year’s BlizzCon may not be as disappointing as last year’s to everyone who was in attendance or watched online. Plus, Blizzard might make up for the disaster of BlizzCon 2018 with the Diablo 4 announcement. The mention of the next Overwatch game for 2020 is a bit of a surprise to me, as it makes me wonder how this will be done compared to the original.
When Diablo Immortal appeared at BlizzCon 2018, fans didn’t like it one bit. At the biggest Blizzard event of the year, the developer chose to show Diablo Immortal, a mobile game to a personal computer fanbase. The company faced an immediate backlash at BlizzCon that made headlines across the internet.
To calm down its community, Blizzard would later confirm that “there are multiple Diablo projects” in development. Of course, one of these projects is Diablo 4. Diablo 3 originally came out back in 2012 and has since become a phenomenon (well … depending on the person, it was a good or bad phenomenon). Fans have waited for the game for seven years now and apparently, they could get their hands on it next year — if no delays happen.
The timing of this bit of news is intriguing and suggests that the title might also be released for PS5 and Xbox’s Project Scarlett. If the Diablo 4 release date is set in 2020, there’s a decent chance it’ll be a next-gen game. As of right now, we can only speculate … however, we expect to know more at BlizzCon 2019. The event is scheduled for November 1st through 3rd. Tickets are on sale but will sell out soon — if they haven’t already.
Stay with us here at GamingLyfe as we look out for more news on Diablo 4 and the next Overwatch.
