Even though there’s been a lot of buzz about the future of the “Diablo” franchise among its fans recently, it doesn’t look like Blizzard are planning to actually announce the big sequel anytime soon. Fans have been looking for any kind of hint about what Blizzard might intend to do, but the studio’s stance is apparently that they are not going to make any announcements in the near future.
It’s already been some time since we saw “Diablo 3”, and the dust around the game has mostly settled at this point, but it’s still too early for Blizzard to put out a sequel, according to most experts. The game is still profitable enough as it is, and even if it stopped drawing in players, the studio could easily release a major expansion for it instead of focusing their efforts on an actual sequel.
On the other hand, it’s true that the design of “Diablo 3” had some flaws which both fans and critics alike pointed out multiple times throughout the game’s lifetime, and in the end it received a lot of criticism in certain areas.
Those problems are a bit beyond recovery now, and the studio can’t really address them by releasing new DLC, so the only way to fix the gameplay for good would be to release a new game that takes all of this experience into consideration.
It’s probably safe to assume that the sequel is already in the works behind the scenes, as Blizzard typically like to get their work started very early on. However, the studio also tends to invest a lot of time and effort into their games, so it would probably be a few years until we actually hear anything about “Diablo 4”.
It’s also probably not a far-fetched assumption that Blizzard are paying close attention to discussions about the game at the moment, and are taking them into account when thinking about their next moves for the franchise.
The studio is known for being deeply in touch with their community, which is one of the reasons for their fans to love them so much, so we fully expect them to incorporate many of the things that have been said about “Diablo 3” in the next release in the franchise, whenever it might happen.
The one major change that should definitely occur is the complete removal of the auction house. People were very critical of that when it was originally introduced to “Diablo 3”, and even though Blizzard eventually backtracked on their decision, it was not before a lot of damage was done to the game’s reputation, and that of the studio as a whole.
Some actually defended the auction house, claiming that it was the lesser evil compared to letting player purchase items through external websites and risk having their payment accounts compromised, but considering that Blizzard was originally against those practices, it doesn’t make much sense for them to actually legitimize the whole financial trading system and stand behind it.
In any case, Blizzard seem to have learned their lesson at least, so we don’t expect them to repeat the mistake with the auction house in the next game. However, who knows what else they might do after following the current trends on the market, as there are definitely some worrying tendencies that could find their way into the next major game by the studio, even if it’s not “Diablo”.