Blizzard has revealed that the next Diablo 4 expansion won't be arriving until next year, so if you were hoping to play the followup to last year's Vessel of Hatred in 2025, you'll be disappointed, unfortunately.
That's according to Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson, who delivered the news during yesterday's DICE summit (thanks, IGN).
According to Fergusson, plans are in place to deliver a Diablo 4 roadmap before Season 8, which is expected to land sometime in spring. The game's second expansion won't be on that roadmap, Fergusson says, "because our second expansion is coming in 2026".
As IGN points out, Fergusson previously suggested that Diablo 4 would be getting an expansion a year, making reference to "annual expansions" and "quarterly seasons" in an interview with Dexerto back in September 2023.
The fact that no Diablo 4 expansion will be released in 2026 suggests that there's been a policy shift in that regard at Blizzard, although since Fergusson's reference to the expansion is fairly throwaway, he doesn't provide a concrete reason for the delay.
He did, however, say at the DICE talk that Vessel of Hatred launched later than Blizzard expected it to, so that could well imply that the company's whole schedule for expansion launches has shifted to accommodate that late launch.
In any case, you're going to be waiting at least another year or so for the next major Diablo 4 expansion. The company still appears to be intending to release seasons on a quarterly basis, though, which is encouraging.
Diablo 4 is, as you've probably guessed, the fourth major installment in the Diablo series (although it's not the fourth overall). The game returns to the grittier, darker aesthetic of earlier Diablo games after Diablo 3's shift towards a relatively lighter and more stylized aesthetic.
Back in June, it was revealed that the Diablo franchise had hit 100 million players, although it's worth noting that's not equivalent to sales since it seems to include player counts for the free-to-play Diablo Immortal, as well as Diablo 4, which is available on Game Pass.
Diablo 4 is available right now on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
