As of now, the release of Diablo 5 is set for 2029. That may seem like plenty of time for Blizzard, and it is, since it's three years away, but one of the co-creators of Path of Exile believes we'll likely be waiting at least a little bit longer for the next installment in the iconic series.
In a YouTube video discussing the game's announcement, Chris Wilson, lead designer on Path of Exile, provided his thoughts on Blizzard's plans. "They've announced they're targeting spring 2029, which is both quite specific and quite soon," he says.
He notes that Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred arrived in April of this year, indicating that development then shifted toward a sequel rather than another full-on expansion, a pivot similar to what Blizzard did at the end of Diablo 3's lifespan as well. Using this as a speculative benchmark, Wilson believes Diablo 5 has only been the team's central priority for around five months so far.
"This would explain why they did not show gameplay at BlizzCon, and mostly had concept art, design plans, and a short announcement cinematic," he reasons. "So how long will it take them to finish the game? Well, conveniently, in my past life, I ran a studio that was developing a similar-sized game."
He then points out that although Grinding Gear Games has "mature content pipelines and a custom engine specifically designed for that genre," development on Path of Exile has been going for eight years and counting. "Diablo 5 realistically needs around as much content at launch to be competitive, and they've even said that they have more character classes than any previous Diablo game, including expansions," he mentions.
"Their three-year timeframe feels like a very tight deadline to me," he adds. He concedes that, yes, they have "Blizzard money" and can pump up the team's numbers, but with rampant layoffs and budgeting concerns, that'd be a precarious strategy. Throw in the desire for in-depth playtesting before launch, especially for fine-tuning drop rates and balancing, and you have a cycle that could easily take longer.
"My best guess here is the game won't be ready for spring 2029," Wilson concludes. "But that's OK, delays happen and are normal in this industry. I can't count the number of times I had to delay a Path of Exile league release, and players were OK with it."
An underlying question here is why Blizzard made the announcement at all. Revealing plans too early can be troublesome; just ask Todd Howard about The Elder Scrolls 6. Wilson pins it on "Blizzard management," because Microsoft "wants more frequent releases for their core game series."
Around BlizzCon, Johanna Faries, the president of Blizzard, told Bloomberg that the company is "going to ship, and ship big, and ship on time." This was regarding both the new Diablo and the upcoming StarCraft, which is set for 2030.
Whatever the reason, we know this is coming. The release just mightn't reach our keyboards and mice before the 2030s roll around - but hey, patience is a virtue.
