Diablo 4's 2025 Roadmap Disappoints Hardcore Fans, Puzzles Former Blizzard President

This week, *Diablo 4* unveiled its first roadmap for 2025, offering a glimpse into the future of this beloved action role-playing game, along with a sneak peek at what's in store for 2026. In an in-depth interview with IGN, game director Brent Gibson delved into the roadmap, covering topics from the much-anticipated second expansion to potential collaborations with other IPs. However, the release of the roadmap has sparked a wave of concern among the *Diablo 4* community, with many questioning the sufficiency of the new content planned for 2025.

The sentiment among some players, particularly the hardcore fans, is one of mild disappointment. As redditor Inangelion quipped, "Oh boy! Can't wait for new Helltide color and temporary powers. It's gonna be so dope!" This reflects a broader feeling that the upcoming content might not be as thrilling as hoped. Feldoneq2wire, another player, compared *Diablo 4* seasons to those in other ARPGs, noting, "A new season in other ARPGs is like 'let's put in a little housing system where you build up a home base with vendors that give you more gear' or 'let's put in a whole shipping system where traders from other lands bring materials that let you upgrade your items in ways that change your class mechanic entirely.' A new season in D4 is 'what color are we making helltides this time?' And 'what powers and reputation skins are we whipping up this time?' "

Fragrantbutte expressed a similar sentiment, stating, "I'm not a Diablo 4 hater, I love the game, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of meat on the bone here which is a bit disappointing." Artyfowl444 echoed this, pointing out that the phrase "and more" in the roadmap seems to be carrying a heavy load of expectations.

The online debate became so intense that Diablo community manager Lyricana_Nightrayne felt compelled to address the community's concerns on the official subreddit. They explained, "We added fewer details to the later parts of the roadmap to accommodate for things the team is still working on. This isn't all that's coming in 2025 :)"

A significant issue raised is Blizzard's approach to seasonal content in *Diablo 4*, which resets each season. While some appreciate the fresh start, others argue it makes deep engagement with each new season feel futile. The debate has led some to consider stepping away from the game until 2026, when more substantial content is expected.

Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard Entertainment, shared his views on the matter via a post on X/Twitter, advocating for a shift in focus. He suggested, "Don't ship to check a box. Season's need to get off the cycle of shipping, spending two months to fix issues, then repeating. Pause and give the team time to really address the end-game issues. Playing for a week to then one or three shot a ‘uber’ boss 500 times for a unique, then quitting until next season is fundamentally not fun. Expansions schedule is too long - should be yearly. Reduce ‘story’ investment (costs so much for one time element in a ARPG) and focus on new classes, new mob types, new end-game activities that last more than a few days. If the cycle continues to just ship w/o fixing the fundamental issues, then I'm not sure where Diablo is going. You can add all the end-game activities you want, but you'll be running in place with the same issues. At some point there's just so many random things, it's not worth the effort."

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred Gameplay Screenshots

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The delay of the second expansion from 2025 to 2026 has also fueled the conversation. Originally, Blizzard planned to release an expansion annually, with *Vessel of Hatred* hitting the shelves in 2024, but the next expansion will now skip a year.

In our interview, Gibson discussed the challenges of maintaining *Diablo 4* as a live service game, balancing free seasonal content with major paid expansions. He reflected on the evolving expectations of gamers, stating, "I definitely feel like gamers are more hungry than they've ever been. And even if you delivered on their appetite today, that appetite will shift tomorrow. And so you just have to be in a really good spot to adapt to that situation. Because a lot of times too, what's important this month is going to be completely different three months from now. The priority of things can shift very, very quickly based on another game release or the state of your own game. Or maybe we've discovered something really cool and we want to be able to get it in there to change the formula."

Gibson emphasized the importance of community interaction and catering to different player types, from casual to hardcore gamers. He explained, "And so it is definitely a new way of developing. It is definitely high interaction with the community. The interesting thing about Diablo is that we have a lot of different community types, right? We have our casual players, we have our hardcore players. They all fall into subdivisions of types of players inside of that. And so what we look to do is season upon season, look at the things that are important to some of those groups and go after them with focus."

He provided examples of how the team is responding to player feedback, noting, "When you take a look at something like what we're doing in Season 8, we know we have a ton of boss lair feedback and so we're adding in the quality of life improvements for those players where that is a big focus of their gameplay type, or we might shift to nightmare dungeons when we're in Season 9. And so it's an opportunity for us to address different groups at different times, leading to an expansion where we're going to be addressing everybody all at once with something big."

*Diablo 4* Season 8 is set to launch later in April, with Season 9 following in the summer, and Season 10 later in the year.