While Diablo 4 hasn’t officially been released just yet (it’s available in early access now, with the full launch on June 6), Blizzard already has content incoming for players in the form of Diablo 4 expansions (DLC), and not just one, but two are already in the works.
This was confirmed by Diablo franchise General Manager Rod Fergusson in a new video chat with Kinda Funny Games. In it, Fergusson talks about the dev team’s structure and how you need to develop a game in a sustainable way where there they aren’t too burnt out when the game launches.. He also explains how things in Diablo 4 need to be developed in parallel given how it takes longer to make a season than to play it, and in the process, causally confirmed that there are two Diablo 4 expansions in the works.
When you’re making a game like this you have to make it in a sustainable way. You can’t, you know, push the team such that when you get to launch day, you cross this Finish Line and everybody falls over exhausted. Because guess what? You have a season coming you have the week two patch coming, because there’s some balance changes or what have you, so you have to build your team and your structure around a way that you can do that sustainably – because you’re kind of always shipping in a way, and in fact that’s something we talk about is we have to build things in parallel.
You know, right now, as I sit here, you know we’re about to launch the main game we’re finishing up Season One, we’re working on Season Two, we’re working on expansion one, we’re kicking off expansion two. All that’s happening right now and so we haven’t even launched the game yet, So, like, you have to have a team that can work in that parallel way [so that] because it takes longer to make a season than it is to play a season, so you can’t, just like, wait till the season ends and start a new one; you have to already be mostly, you know, done by that time, and so that just takes a lot of rigor and resiliency on the team and that’s what’s been great about this team is that they’ve really embraced the sort of parallel structure and the ability to be able to do that in a sustainable way. – Rod Fergusson, Diablo General Manager
Given past Diablo games, an expansion is something players will undoubtedly expecting. As for the game’s season, expect Season 1 to kick off this July, and you’ll need to have beaten the game’s campaign to take part in it.
