Numerous lawsuits, employee layoffs and executive resignations marked a tumultuous and controversial year for Blizzard. As a result, Blizzard has announced that Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 will be postponed, with no release date set.
The bad news came courtesy of a Blizzard earnings call, with a slide shared by Axios reporter Stephen Totilo on Twitter. In it, Blizzard states, “While we are still planning to deliver a significant amount of content from Blizzard next year, we are now planning a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally planned.”
The delay isn’t surprising as neither game had announced release dates. In a February earnings call, Blizzard revealed that neither game would be out in 2021, making 2022 the first possible release window at the time. With games officially delayed now, it seems likely that fans won’t be playing these titles until at least 2023.
While the news of a Diablo IV delay is annoying, fans can at least sit back and enjoy Diablo II: Resurrected, which had a rough start but now faithfully recreates this classic gameplay experience. However, Overwatch fans are getting a little more nervous.
Overwatch 2 was originally supposed to be focused on PvE. Now, it appears to be focusing more on PvP, though Blizzard controversially announced that the game will switch to 5v5 instead of 6v6 and will only feature one Tank role per team. Additionally, the original Overwatch has stopped receiving new characters or maps as Blizzard focuses on Overwatch 2.
In short? Overwatch 2 is likely to be released no sooner than seven years after the original game, and that original game (which suffers from bewildering character changes, long role queues, and annoying competitive play) may be largely abandoned at that point. Time will tell if Overwatch’s IP can survive all these delays and the Blizzard drama behind the scenes.
Start a new Thread