Blizzard reportedly pulled a Diablo 4 teaser from BlizzCon 2018
A pulled video allegedly was going to simply confirm that Diablo 4 is in development, but not ready to be shown.
Despite asking fans to reel in their expectations for Diablo-related news at BlizzCon 2018, it turns out the company had plans to tease the development of Diablo 4 anyway. Instead, they pulled the video tease and allowed the BlizzCon 2018 Opening Ceremony to close on a bit of an awkward note.
According to a report from Kotaku, a couple anonymous sources say that Blizzard planned to tease Diablo 4 and pulled those plans at the last minute. The original plan was to show the full reveal for Diablo Immortal and then end with a video that would feature Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham saying that Diablo 4 was in development but not ready to be shown. Blizzard essentially said as much with a blog post prior to BlizzCon 2018 anyway, asking fans to temper their expectations because the company "won't be ready to announce all of our projects."
To catch you up on how the show actually ended, Blizzard closed out the BlizzCon 2018 Opening Ceremony with the reveal of Diablo Immortal for mobile devices and some attendees reacted pretty poorly.
If you're one of the many mobile gamers and are interested in what Diablo on-the-go will deliver, check out our Diablo Immortal hands-on preview from BlizzCon 2018. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.
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replyCharles Singletary Jr posted a new article, Blizzard reportedly pulled a Diablo 4 teaser from BlizzCon 2018
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To be fair to those people who are upset...it was the equivalent of spending time and money to attend an event for your *favorite* game on the ps4...and them announcing a simplified version of the game only on Nintendo switch. The entire thing made no fucking sense, it was just so poorly conceived.
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Oh I'm right there with you. I was a bit pissed myself as Diablo has been one of my favorite things Blizzard has ever done, D2 still being an absolute gem. I saw the phone game announcement and just shook my head. Hell, I'd be interested at least in the Switch version if it wasn't priced at a premium $60.
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So basically the the original plan was the exact thing Bethesda did (announce new mobile game people don’t care about, give pointless teaser acknowledging game+1 that people do care about). And Bethesda didn’t get a bunch of whining and complaining.
Between this and the technical difficulties the keynote is remarked to have had, it’s kinda impressive how badly they dropped the ball.-
The ball also deflated after it hit the ground with a comical bluuuuuufp sound.
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Bethesda I think managed expectations a bit better. It was clear there would be a Fallout announcement (with the tease before hand), but they didn't spell anything out about TES. So they get through the exciting stuff, end on TES (which no one was expecting much of) - the mobile TES game and then pull out "Hey TES 6 is coming but don't hold your breath". No one went in with high expectations
Blizzard told everyone "expect Diablo news", so when they got to the Diablo specific portion (which was the last part of the opening ceremonies even after the rerouting of the Hearthstone session), you have a audience that had been waiting for this news and it turns out to be a mobile game.
I would expect that if the Diablo segment was, say, second in the program after HotS, there wouldn't have been that much backlash. The Overwatch or WOW segments could have been last - everyone knew there was something in those and could wait. Or heck, flip the two around, if its true they were announcing D4 in development, start with that, and say "We know you're all excited to play D4, but its still a few years out, so we've come up with another way to play Diablo... on your phone!" Might be some ughs and boos, but nowhere close to the backlash.
But again, it comes back to the fact core gamers are not easily taken by mobile game, and so if that was your "major" point, it was a bad idea to tease that news.
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So no Diablo 4 until 2020/2021 if it is still in as early development as this article and the PCGamer one.
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