Former Blizzard president says ‘I’m not sure where Diablo is going’ after Diablo 4 roadmap disappoints: ‘Don’t ship to check a box’

Blizzard’s loved a good roadmap, lately—and, as an occasional WoW player, it’s mostly been reaping the rewards of them. But things aren’t so bright and sunny over in Diablo 4 land, with the latest one falling a smidge flat.

For starters, half of the thing’s burnt off: Seeing as Diablo 4’s next major expansion isn’t arriving until 2026, one would hope there’d be a swarm of seasonal content features to tide players over. Instead, it’s mostly rep boards—which are sort of like battle-pass style seasonal grinds to unlock various gubbins. There’s some other stuff on there—like new lair bosses—but when “earnable pet” is a flagship feature on every timeslot on your roadmap, something’s up. It doesn’t help that the map only gets 3/4ths of the way through a year before essentially going ‘we’ve got more, trust us, it’s gonna be great’.

Mike Ybarra, former Blizzard president—who took a bit of a weird zag into CEO of Prizepicks, a fantasy sports company—weighed in on the lukewarm response on X in a very polite, three-point takedown of what he sees as the D4 team’s current issues.