Blizzard is aware it’s hard to keep up with Diablo 4 when it receives foundational changes regularly, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to let “obsolete” parts of the game live on without being reworked or fixed.
Diablo 4 has been in a near-constant state of change since release in 2023, with major updates significantly overhauling loot, endgame bosses, monster behavior, and difficulty in the last few years. And that’s on top of new seasons every few months that introduce limited-time mechanics and features of their own.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Diablo 4 game director Zaven Haroutunian made it clear that Blizzard knows the frequent changes to how Diablo 4 works isn’t ideal, especially for casual players.
“We know that it’s also really hard for players to keep up with [Diablo 4], particularly those who aren’t playing at the cutting edge of everything all the time,” Haroutunian said.
However, he continued that if a part of the game isn’t working, Blizzard needs to give it attention.
“I don’t think anyone’s too thrilled about having an obsolete part of the game just sort of linger and not do its job and not contribute,” he said.
While Haroutunian admitted Diablo 4’s major updates can be a lot for players to keep up with, he also said those transformational updates are to some extent natural “transitions” for an ARPG. He said it’s a genre where it’s normal (so much so he called it a meme) for ARPGs to go on “transformative arcs” based on the needs of its players, and that Blizzard “can’t escape it” more than other games in the genre.
“I call them transitions because the people who play an action RPG from the start, they change as they play that action RPG more and they start requiring different things,” Haroutunian said. “Friction points that we could never imagine–that players might never even imagine–suddenly rear their head over the course of 10,000 hours.”
Diablo 4’s next transformation will come April 28 with the release of its second expansion, Lord of Hatred. In addition to Lord of Hatred adding two new classes with the Paladin and Warlock, it will also dramatically rework class skill trees by removing passive skills entirely and introduce a new, 12-tier difficulty system more similar to Diablo 3.
Blizzard’s ARPG is currently in the middle of its 12th season, the shorter-than-usual Season of Slaughter. In addition to the introduction of a Killstreak mechanic inspired by Diablo 3, the season also features a crossover with Doom: The Dark Ages and lets players transform into one of the game’s most iconic demons, the bloodthirsty Butcher.