Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo 4 will get paid expansions every year on top of its upcoming seasonal content.
Blizzard Entertainment is planning to release paid expansions for Diablo 4 every year for the foreseeable future. During an interview with Dexerto, general manager Rod Fergusson confirmed that the game's seasonal content is just part of, “a foundation on which we can build for the future.”
It’s no secret that Diablo 4 was made with plans for future expansions, but this is our first confirmation that expansions are coming to the game on a yearly basis. Fergusson said, “When you look at the launch of the game and this first season, we see that as building a foundation on which we can build for the future. So, as we look at our quarterly seasons, and we look at our annual expansions, those are the things that we’re really focused on for our live service.”
As Fergusson told Kinda Funny Games back in June, at least two of these expansions are already deep in development. He said, “Right now, as I sit here, we’re about to launch the main game, we’re finishing up Season 1, we’re working on Season 2, we’re working on Expansion 1, we’re kicking off Expansion 2, all that’s happening right now.”
Diablo 4 players are guaranteed at least two expansions on top of the game’s regular seasonal updates, then. These expansions should be a lot more enticing than new seasons however, considering that Blizzard plans to use them to push the main story forward. Seasonal questlines are largely separate from the main campaign, but future expansions will likely deal with the aftermath of the fight against Lilith in the main campaign.
Diablo 4 is Blizzard’s fastest-selling game of all time, so it’s not surprising that the publisher plans to double down on that success with multiple paid expansions. This puts the sequel well ahead of past entries like Diablo 3 in terms of ambition alone, since the game only received one big expansion in its lifetime. World of Warcraft receives an expansion every other year, but Blizzard’s other ongoing franchises like Overwatch and Hearthstone receive big content drops with far less regularity.
It’s clear that Blizzard wants to keep Diablo 4’s success going for as long as possible, but players already seem tired of the endgame grind and slow XP gains, so the developer has its work cut out already. Future expansions stand to regain lost players with more story content and additional character classes, however. We’ll have to wait and see.
Diablo 4’s next big content drop will be in October, when its vampire-themed second season arrives.