Diablo 4 Roadmap Gets Criticized by Former Blizzard President

Ex-Blizzard president Mike Ybarra questioned Diablo 4’s direction, calling out seasonal stagnation, long expansion gaps, and lackluster endgame content in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter).

Ybarra, who served as Blizzard Entertainment’s president from February 2022 until January 2024, expressed concern over Diablo 4’s current trajectory as Blizzard revealed the game’s roadmap.

As the first of a three-point takedown of what he sees as the Diablo 4 team’s current issues, the former Blizzard president criticized the game’s seasonal cycle, which is not addressing core gameplay problems, advising former colleagues, “Don’t ship to check a box. Season’s need to get off the cycle of shipping, spending 2 months to fix issues, then repeating.”

Then he aimed for the endgame experience ”Pause and give the team time to really address the endgame issues. Playing for a week to then 1 or 3 shot a “uber” boss 500 times for a unique, then quitting until next season is fundamentally not fun.”

Mike’s final critique point centered on the pacing of expansions, stating that ”Expansions schedule is too long – should be yearly. Reduce “story” investment (costs so much for 1-time element in an ARPG) and focus on new classes, new mob types, and new end-game activities that last more than a few days.”

In conclusion, Mike Ybarra expressed that if the cycle of releasing updates without addressing the core issues continues, it is unclear to him where Diablo is headed. He noted that no matter how many end-game activities are added, it would feel like running in place with the same problems.

​As of September 2024, Diablo IV has generated over $1 billion in revenue since its release in June 2023. This figure includes approximately $150 million from in-game microtransactions. In its first five days, the game earned $666 million, becoming Blizzard Entertainment’s fastest-selling game at that time.