Blizzard recently announced its plans for the current year in Diablo 4 – and they are not well received by everyone. Now the former head explains what the ARPG needs.
In a roadmap for 2025, Blizzard showed what else is on the agenda for Diablo 4: events, endgame updates, loot pets – and new, powerful abilities that you can unlock for your builds. They apparently remain true to the basic recipe of the seasons.
The plans are not going down well with the community. The topic of unlockable abilities is simply too frequent. A new expansion and leaderboards will not arrive until 2026. Although Blizzard emphasizes: This is not everything for the year in Diablo 4 – this has hardly pacified the community so far.
Now Mike Ybarra, the former Blizzard head, shares his thoughts on it. Ybarra enjoys a relatively good reputation in the community, partly because he always presents himself as a gamer who knows what players want.
Who is speaking? Mike Ybarra worked at Blizzard since August 2021 and was the president of the company since February 2022. Before Ybarra was at Blizzard, he worked at Microsoft for many years prior. In January 2024, he had his last day at Blizzard. His departure coincided with over 1,900 layoffs that were announced at that time.
“You are going around in circles with the same problems”
This is what the former head criticizes: In a post on X, Mike Ybarra refers to three issues he sees in Diablo 4:
- The release rhythm of new content
- Endgame activities
- and the handling of expansions
Ybarra believes that the seasons need to move away from the cycle of “releasing to check off”. It is released, then patched for two months – and then it starts all over again. Content like leaderboards takes forever because the team is constantly busy with bug fixes that re-enter the game every new season, Ybarra adds in the comment.
The former head believes that the team needs to be given time to fundamentally overhaul the endgame. Currently, it is simply not fun: playing for a week, defeating Uber bosses 500 times, hoping for the right Unique – and then stopping until the next season. The sentiment in the community is: Diablo 4 constantly tries to please everyone, which is why it is worse than it could be.
According to Ybarra, major add-ons should be released every year. That was also the plan – but it had to be postponed after the first expansion. The second expansion will not come until 2026. He believes: less focus on story, more focus on content that is fun for a long time. New classes, fresh enemy types, fun endgame activities. After all, in ARPGs, you only play through the story once.
Mike Ybarra concludes his post with a summary:
If the cycle continues without addressing the fundamental issues, I don’t know where Diablo is headed. You can add as many endgame activities as you want, but you will be going around in circles with the same problems. At some point, there will just be so many arbitrary things that it’s not worth the effort.
What does the community say about this? In a Reddit thread, the community discusses Ybarra’s assessment. Some remind that Diablo 4 was developed under his leadership as president of Blizzard. His departure in January 2024 was six months after the release of Diablo 4. Others comment that they find his feedback very accurate overall.
In an interview with Diablo expert and YouTuber Rhykker, game director Brent Gibson talks about the upcoming expansion. He is already looking forward to the new class that is supposed to come into the game in 2026. Many fans still hope for a Paladin – and Gibson’s statements actually sound like what everyone wants: The head talks about the new class in Diablo 4, sounds a bit like what everyone wants
