The latest Activision Blizzard financial call revealed some devastating news for anybody looking forward to the next entries in the Overwatch and Diablo franchises: Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV have been delayed. While the call stopped short of mentioning any specific dates, the careful wording of the delay announcement makes it clear that they don’t expect these games to factor into earnings for 2022, which would push both titles out into 2023.
The delays come amid new leadership at Blizzard (which itself comes amid the California lawsuit against Activision Blizzard alleging a toxic and abusive culture), and as the teams have looked at these releases “with fresh eyes,” they determined that more time is needed to deliver not only the games themselves, but to set up support for both games long term beyond the launch date.
Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 delayed pic.twitter.com/4pr9c0OEdz
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) November 2, 2021
During the question and answer portion of the investor call, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra refused to give any kind of more definitive release windows for either game, except to reiterate that they don’t expect the titles to factor into 2022 earnings. This puts Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV in 2023 at the earliest.
Overwatch 2 was first announced in 2019 at BlizzCon. The title would blend with Overwatch 1, crossing over multiplayer elements while adding its own single-player and PVE elements as well so that the game could focus more on Overwatch’s lore and story. Blizzard has offered a number of updates on Overwatch 2 in the years since, but it doesn’t look like it’s ready to release anytime soon. Overwatch 2 also lost its Director, Jeff Kaplan, earlier this year, as well as its executive producer.
Diablo IV was revealed at BlizzCon 2019 as well, with few updates about the title since. It’s also gotten a new Director after the old one left earlier this year amid the Activision Blizzard lawsuits and misconduct allegations against him. Earlier this year, Blizzard launched a remastered version of Diablo II.
Both Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are now expected in 2023 at the earliest, and both will feature support for “many years” beyond their respective launches.
