Blizzard will share more details on Diablo 4’s live-service trapping as part of a newly announced Developer Update livestream broadcast next week.
According to Blizzard’s announcement post, next Wednesday, May 10 at 7pm BST/11am PDT via Twitch and YouTube, Diablo franchise general manager Rod Ferguson, associate game director Joseph Pipiora, product management director Kegan Clarke and associate director K. Working together. Community Adam Fletcher all confirmed to be in attendance.
This time around the conversation will focus on Diablo 4’s heftier, somewhat controversial, live-service elements, including its season model, optional battle pass, and cosmetics.
Blizzard has touched on all of these things before — director Joe Shelley and lead class designer Adam Jackson chatted a bit about Diablo 4’s three-month-long season and combat passes in conversation with Eurogamer last year, for example — But it looks like we can expect a deeper dive on monetization and seasonal structure during next week’s show.
While questions remain concerning Diablo 4’s live-service ambitions, we are, at least, starting to get a more robust sense of its campaign side as Blizzard’s successor gears up for release on June 6. Eurogamer’s Jessica Orr, Mary Pritchard and Robert Purchase all shared their thoughts on Diablo 4’s Early Access beta back in March this year.