Former Blizzard president planned to ‘cut down’ on microtransactions in Diablo 4 and reboot Overwatch before the Microsoft buyout

If Microsoft hadn’t dropped $69 billion to buy Activision Blizzard last year, we may have seen some dramatic changes to Diablo 4 and Overwatch. In the final chapter of Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, author Jason Schreier reports that former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra “had planned to cut down on microtransactions in Diablo 4 and reboot Overwatch,” before he left the studio.

The details about how any of this would’ve been done are not mentioned, and it’s possible it was a plan only Ybarra knew of, but his departure kept it from ever coming to fruition. I suspect it would’ve been an uphill battle trying to argue against the cosmetic shop that reportedly earned the company over $150 million in lifetime revenue. And I don’t know how well an Overwatch reboot would’ve gone over with players who already invested so much time and money into Overwatch 2.