If you were eagerly anticipating a new Diablo 4 expansion in 2025, you'll need to wait a bit longer. According to Diablo's general manager, Rod Fergusson, the next major expansion for Diablo 4 is slated for release in 2026.
During his speech at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Fergusson shared the team's strategy to enhance their community engagement by adopting a content roadmap approach similar to that of Diablo Immortal and World of Warcraft. He announced that a roadmap for Diablo 4's 2025 plans would be released soon, which will detail the seasons and updates expected throughout the year.
However, he clarified that the roadmap won't include the game's next expansion, confirming its release for 2026. "In 2025, or just before Season 8, we will have a 2025 roadmap for Diablo 4. Now, our second expansion won't be on that roadmap, because our second expansion is coming in 2026, but at least players will have the road ahead," Fergusson stated.
Fergusson did not delve deeply into the reasons behind the delay of the second expansion, but he did provide some insight earlier in his talk. Originally, Blizzard had planned to release annual expansions, with Vessel of Hatred scheduled for 2024 and another expansion anticipated for 2025. However, Vessel of Hatred ended up launching 18 months after the game's initial release instead of the planned 12 months.
He explained that the delay was due to the team working on seasons ahead of time and the need to respond to player feedback and make adjustments to live content. This required temporarily reallocating resources from Vessel of Hatred, which in turn delayed it internally and pushed back other planned content.
Diablo 4 recently introduced its Season of Witchcraft, featuring new witchcraft powers, a fresh questline, and more. We rated the base game of Diablo 4 a 9/10, describing it as "a stunning sequel with near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down."
