Diablo 3? Maybe 4?

By now there’s been plenty of talk about the Diablo 3 delay, a lot of it putting the spin out there that this is for the best. Blizzard is making what sounds like some pretty significant changes, akin to going back to the drawing board on major areas of the game.

From the 1-Up article,

“While working on Diablo III we’ve been called out for messing around with systems too much, that the game is good as-is and we should just release it,” Wilson wrote. “I think that’s a fair argument to make, but I also think it’s incorrect. Our job isn’t just to put out a game, it’s to release the next Diablo game. No one will remember if the game is late, only if it’s great. We trust in our ability to put out a great game, but we’re not quite there yet. In addition to finishing and polishing the content of the game we’re continuing to iterate on some of the core game systems.”

I’m skeptical about this position. Diablo III was first announced all of the way back in 2008, and at that point it already looked like near-beta quality. The game currently is in beta, in fact, and still they’re planning to make these major changes. It’s admirable that they want the launch to go as smoothly as possible, but the scope of the changes they’re talking about sounds, on its face, counter-productive.

There’s another way of looking at this, which is the way that I feel is perhaps most accurate: the “real” Diablo III is a game that was never shipped (it should have shipped in 2010) and which was only glimpsed in the public beta. The game that Blizzard is now working on is Diablo IV, some version of which will be released under the title of “Diablo III.” I realize that it’s foolish to question the unassailable wisdom of Blizzard, but that’s exactly what I’m doing.

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