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Diablo IV has only recently been released on all platforms, but creator Blizzard is not stopping there. In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, general manager Rod Fergusson said that the team is already working on two expansions. "As I sit here, we're about to launch the main game, we're finishing up season one, working on season two, working on expansion one," he explained, adding that work on the second big expansion was about to begin. Diablo IV was created with a live-service structure in mind, with significant content released over time in seasons. This is a significant improvement over Diablo III's model, which was launched 11 years ago but was abandoned throughout that period.
In a prior interview with IGN, Fergusson stated that Diablo IV expansions will have narrative questlines, with some "richer context" added around the release of a season, which will also follow a theme, resulting in new cosmetics and gameplay features tailored towards it. The storyline will not expand the main campaign in any manner and will instead act as side tales set in the game's open environment. "Because the nice thing about the world is that there are still a lot of stories you can tell without having to tell the Lilith/Inarius story," he explained at the time. In comparison, Diablo II and Diablo III each had one major expansion, with ongoing maintenance supplied through patches and content updates. The studio intends to keep Diablo IV updated for years, even providing a battle pass with just cosmetic goods.
Diablo 4 is now in its pre-season stage, with a store offering limited merchandise for purchase. As season one begins, users may look forward to the battle pass and an expanded store with a theme. The in-game shop is also said to contain an intelligence system that will propose things based on the class you're playing. As the team continues to work on the big update, the pre-season time will serve as a testing phase for that.
Blizzard raised the stakes for Diablo IV's competitive player community last week, pledging to immortalise the first 1,000 players to hit level 100 on Hardcore mode by etching their names/battle tags onto a Lilith monument. There's no news yet on where the statue will be stored or what they plan to do with it, but I'm guessing it'll be at the main headquarters. For the uninitiated, Hardcore Mode is essentially a permadeath mode in which your character is deleted upon death, requiring you to reconstruct and start from scratch. The difficulty level on this one is likewise fairly high.
Back in May, the studio also emphasised Diablo 4's endgame growth, which is intended to keep the game exciting after the main campaign is completed. You have a Capstone Dungeon that allows you to conduct numerous runs – at increasing difficulty — to acquire a variety of treasures and continue to get stronger. Nightmare Dungeons return as well, allowing you to pick one of the Sanctuary's 120+ dungeons and make it a harsher playfield. These may be activated by locating a Nightmare Sigil, which adds harder goals, a higher opponent count, and portals that summon monsters from distant worlds.
Diablo IV is currently available on PC (through Battle.net), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.