Diablo III has had a more tragic history than one might first imagine. For starters, we are now learning that there was a second Diablo III expansion in the making, though cancelled, as well as a special standalone Dark Souls-inspired Diablo game, which was cancelled as well.
Good news, though, as sources reveal that Diablo IV Fenrir definitely is in production. More excitingly, we're not very far away from the release of Diablo Immortal, and since we all have phones, that's the one to really keep an eye out for.
According to the recent article published by Kotaku, following the launch of Diablo III, there was practically a complete loss of confidence in the game's ability to, well, succeed. It is no secret that many were unhappy with the direction that Blizzard had taken with Diablo III, but all of this seemed forgiven when the game's first expansion, Reaper of Souls came out to critical acclaim.
However, shortly before RoS was released, Blizzard internally announced that they will be halting production for the second unannounced expansion for Diablo III. "They thought Diablo III was a giant fuck-up," said one of the developers about the executives.
"They could’ve held off a few months and seen how Reaper did, but in their mind (Diablo III) was irredeemable," said another, adding how Blizzard scattered the team working on Diablo III at the time - Team 3 - who were supposedly the 'strongest Diablo dev team ever'.
Aside from the Diablo III cancelled expansion, another cancelled project was Hades, which was a Diablo take on Dark Souls, according to people interviewed by Kotaku. A third-person, over-the-shoulder dungeon crawler, though Blizzard felt that the project wasn't shaping up at all, and dissipated the team.
As it stands, the current developer build of Diablo IV is referred to as Fenrir, and Team 3 has been working on it since 2016, according to sources, who are very optimistic about the game. Let us hope they are right!
