Diablo 5 won't spend a decade in development, as Blizzard president commits to shorter waits between titles

Blizzard's president has said a potential follow-up to Diablo 4 - Diablo 5, if you will - won't spend as long in development as the current game did.

Diablo 4's development timeline was anything but smooth. The game reportedly went through multiple iterations at Blizzard, with multiple personnel stepping into and departing from leadership positions. In all, Diablo 4 took roughly a decade to develop, from initial conceptualization to release.

Now, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has said a follow-up to Diablo 4 won't take as long to make as Diablo 4 did. In the tweet below, Ybarra thanks an IGN editor for liking Diablo 4's campaign, and reassures them that they "won't have to wait so long between titles."

Ybarra adds that Blizzard has a "lot more coming to Diablo 4 and beyond." Given Diablo 4 is a live-service game, and Blizzard has already committed to supporting it well beyond launch for its established player base, it's not really a surprise the developer is cooking up new stuff for the current game.

However, Ybarra's comment seems to indicate that Blizzard is at least thinking about a follow-up to Diablo 4. How Ybarra can guarantee that Blizzard won't spend a decade developing another Diablo game, when game development is notoriously turbulent and rocky, is anyone's guess. It's tricky just to scope for a five-year project, let alone guarantee such a project wouldn't be delayed by years.

Diablo 4 Season 1 is currently still rolling on, bringing with it new content to earn both in-game and via the debut Battle Pass. Diablo 4's in-game trading was disabled thanks to a 30 billion gold crossbow, which threatened to completely upend the in-game economy thanks to its auction coinciding with a new gold duplication glitch.

Check out our Diablo 4 Domhainne Tunnels guide if you're after a quick way to bag yourself some extra XP.