14 DAY TRIAL // The troubled development cycle of Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 doesn’t seem to come to an end. Although neither game had release dates, Blizzard said early this year that they will not be coming out in 2021. Today, the US developer revealed that it needs more time to finish the projects, so both games have been delayed indefinitely.
Early this year, both games lost their directors, Luis Barriga who oversaw the Diablo IV development, and Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch 2’s director. It’s unclear if these departures have forced the development team to reboot both projects, but they surely contributed to these delays.
During Activision Blizzard’s third-quarter earnings call, an executive said that “as we have worked with new leadership in Blizzard and within the franchises themselves, particularly in certain key creative roles, it has become apparent that some of the Blizzard content planned for next year will benefit from more development time to reach its full potential.”
The Blizzard official went on to say that due to “higher voluntary turnover” and “the departure of a number of individuals across the company,” the studio war forced to delay Diablo IV and Overwatch 2.
As we’ve already mentioned, both games were in development without an exact launch date, but Blizzard did hint at a 2022 release window. However, the new announcement suggest that neither will be out until at least 2023.
“While we are still planning to deliver substantial amount of content from Blizzard next year, we are now planning for a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally envisaged,” announced Activision Blizzard.
In the same piece of news, Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal announced her departure from the company after being promoted alongside Mike Ybarra back in August. Oneal will take on another position within Activision before leaving at the end of the year, and she’ll manage a $1 million grant given by Activision for the non-profit organization Women in Games International, whose board Oneal member.