Yes, Diablo 3 was supposed to receive a second expansion. However, it was canceled because Diablo 3 did not perform as planned.
The mood among Diablo fans has been dampened in recent weeks. There is currently little happening in Diablo 3, and there was no announcement regarding Diablo 4 during BlizzCon.
The website Kotaku reported that Blizzard employees revealed new information. This includes exciting details about Diablo 4 and a canceled addon for Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 – second DLC canceled
In Kotaku’s article, the past, present, and future of Diablo are discussed by former and current Blizzard employees who anonymously speak about the canceled DLC for Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 was expanded some time ago with the Necromancer DLC. The new playable class was well received by the community, but for many fans, it simply wasn’t enough. A common criticism was that there was too little content for Diablo 3. There were supposed to be more contents, but they were apparently canceled.
Why was the second Diablo 3 expansion not released?
Diablo 3 was considered a failure: Regarding the canceled second expansion of Diablo 3, an anonymous developer said that it was canceled because Diablo 3 was labeled a failure by higher-ups at Blizzard. This was even before the Reaper of Souls expansion was released.
What the team was told was “You completed Reaper of Souls, that’s really good. But we think it’s best for the IP to move on to Diablo 4, in whatever form that may take.”
The general suspicion in the team was, at least in my impression, that there was a vote of no confidence from the leadership. They thought Diablo III was a huge “fuck-up”.
Overall, the perception was that management thought “This team really messed up”. They should have waited a few months and seen how Reaper [of Souls] performed. But in their minds, Diablo III was beyond repair.
How much did the team feel hit by the announcement? Many in the team were disappointed by this decision, it is said. They wanted to show with an expansion how they had learned from the mistakes of Diablo 3.
Many people were stunned. I think many of them felt “We made mistakes with Diablo 3. But we learned from it and made Reaper to show what we can do. We fixed it and Reaper is really good.” I believe many people felt that we now had it figured out and knew what to do. And Expansion 2 would have, whatever it became, expressed that. That they pulled the plug without really looking at how Reaper was doing hurt.
Cancellation of the second expansion was probably Blizzard’s biggest mistake in recent years
What happened after the cancellation? After the second expansion was canceled, many developers on the team were reassigned to other projects. At that time, work began on a project code-named Hades, led by Reaper of Souls director Josh Mosqueira.
Hades was somewhat like Diablo in the style of Dark Souls. However, the project was canceled in 2016. Afterwards, work began on Rise of the Necromancer for Diablo 3. Additionally, they started Project Fenrir, which is likely to be Diablo 4.
According to some of the interviewed employees, the cancellation of the second Diablo addon was Blizzard’s biggest mistake in recent years. A Diablo veteran says in the conversation:
I remember many of us looking at each other and saying: Man, if we had just done this second expansion instead of losing half the team through the cancellation and then all the personnel changes, management changes, then the thing with Hades … If we hadn’t done any of that and had just focused on making a solid third act for Diablo, it would be out now.
What exactly we could have expected from a second Diablo 3 expansion is unclear. Many were already hoping for a Druid DLC for Diablo 3.
Only 50% of Blizzard projects make it through
In a statement to Kotaku, Blizzard explained that only about 50% of Blizzard projects are released. They only want to publish titles that meet their quality standards.
As for the cancellation of games, we see that as a strength. An expression of our commitment to quality and how we have always worked. In the past, we have published about 50% of all the projects we worked on over the last three decades. These are the ones we consider representative of Blizzard’s quality.
Furthermore, it is said that it is never easy to cancel a game. However, it has always been the right decision. The cancellation of Titan led Blizzard to Overwatch. The cancellation of Nomad led to World of Warcraft.
