Diablo 4's 2025 Roadmap Criticized by Fans and Ex-Blizzard President

This week, *Diablo 4* unveiled its first roadmap of content, providing a glimpse into the action role-playing game's future for 2025 and teasing what's in store for 2026. In an exclusive interview with IGN, game director Brent Gibson delved into the roadmap, covering everything from the second expansion to potential collaborations with other IPs. However, the community's reaction to the roadmap has been mixed, with many expressing concerns about the lack of substantial content planned for 2025.

Hardcore players, in particular, have voiced their disappointment over the upcoming content. Redditor Inangelion humorously remarked, "Oh boy! Can't wait for new Helltide color and temporary powers. It's gonna be so dope!" This sentiment reflects a broader frustration among fans who were hoping for more innovative and engaging additions to the game.

Fellow player feldoneq2wire compared *Diablo 4* to other ARPGs, stating, "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 added, "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 sentiment, noting that the phrase "And more" in the roadmap seems to be carrying a heavy load of expectations.

The discussion on the *Diablo 4* subreddit grew so intense that community manager Lyricana_Nightrayne felt compelled to address the concerns directly. "We added fewer details to the later parts of the roadmap to accommodate for things the team is still working on," they explained. "This isn't all that's coming in 2025 :)"

A significant point of contention is Blizzard's approach to seasonal content in *Diablo 4*. Some players appreciate the reset each season brings, while others feel it discourages deep engagement with new content. There's a divide between those who believe a constant stream of seasonal content would be overwhelming, and those contemplating a hiatus until more substantial updates arrive in 2026.

Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard Entertainment, weighed in on the debate via X/Twitter. He criticized the current cycle of releasing seasonal content, saying, "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."

Ybarra also suggested that expansions should be released annually, advocating for a focus on new classes, mob types, and end-game activities rather than extensive story elements. He warned, "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

73 Images

The delay of the second expansion, initially planned for 2025 but now set for 2026, has further fueled the debate. While the first expansion, *Vessel of Hatred*, launched in 2024, the second will skip a year, deviating from Blizzard's initial plan of annual releases.

In our interview, Gibson addressed the challenges of maintaining *Diablo 4* as a live service game with both free seasonal content and paid expansions. "I definitely feel like gamers are more hungry than they've ever been," Gibson said. "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 highlighted the importance of engaging with the diverse *Diablo* community, which includes both casual and hardcore players. 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 aims to address different player groups' needs, such as improving boss lairs in Season 8 or focusing on nightmare dungeons in Season 9. Gibson concluded, "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 expected in the summer, and Season 10 later in the year.