Diablo 4 has had a rather eventful journey since the release of its first expansion and the ongoing sixth season. While many have praised the overhauls brought forth by Vessel of Hatred, there’s been equal amounts of criticism directed at its pricing and the game’s generally slow progression of its overarching plot.
Still, it’s difficult not to agree that the fourth game in the series is arguably at its peak at the moment, which becomes much more intriguing considering Diablo 3, the predecessor, continues to perform as well as the game in sheer player count. What would equally surprise you is how Blizzard reacts to those stats.
Diablo 4’s biggest competitor is its predecessor, and Blizzard is fine with that
Let’s get one thing out of the way first—Diablo 4 continues to be Blizzard’s primary cash cow, with the game reportedly earning the company close to a billion dollars.
But as much as the game may be a financial success, it’s undoubtedly not realizing its full monetary potential for the dev team at the moment, considering how Diablo 3 still has an active player base of nearly 3 million players, just short of a million from the fourth game.
Now, some might say that this is only proof of the franchise’s staying power, but realistically, it’s undoubtedly strange that so many within the community continue to stick to the third game when the fourth is quite the package itself.
What’s strange still, however, is how Blizzard feels about this unexpected competition from within. When asked about it in an interview, in quite the twist, Rod Fergusson, the head of the Diablo franchise, welcomed the news, offering a refreshingly humble perspective, especially for an executive from Blizzard of all companies, saying how:
I mean, one of the things you’ll notice about Blizzard is that we tend not to turn any games off; it’s very rare. So you can still play Diablo and Diablo 2, Diablo 2: Resurrected, and Diablo 3, right? And so just people playing Blizzard games is awesome, so it’s not a problem that people are playing whatever version.
He further elaborated on this by explaining how everything’s fine as long as people continue to play and enjoy their games:
That’s one of the things that’s been really exciting about Diablo 2: Resurrected is that there’s a very large fan base for that game, which is a remaster of a 21-year-old game. So just having people in our sort of ecosystem, playing and loving Blizzard games, is a huge positive.
If we’re being honest, it’s rather refreshing to see a company so openly support player freedom and let its fan base play whatever it wants without any hassle or some shady catch.
Of course, Blizzard isn’t some innocent indie developer—we do not forget the greed-filled monetization of its IPs and questionable practices. But again, the company’s ecosystem-first approach, where every Diablo title remains relevant, does compel a certain level of respect.
But the question remains: why do many players still play Diablo 3 to this day?
Coming back to what we left unanswered, we thought a lot about why people would prefer one over the other. The first thing that jumps out at us is that the third game is just faster-paced than the fourth, which allows many to jump into a session, blow up hordes of enemies, and not worry too much about resource management.
In this regard, the fourth game essentially demands that you slow down, plan your strategies around cooldowns, and frustrate and manage your resources, which may be a point of frustration for many.
Another bugger is how 3’s story, while campy, is somewhat streamlined and complete at this point, while 4 is still slowly chugging along, one expansion after another – frustratingly, we still don’t know what’s in store for Mephisto with Vessel of Hatred, for instance.
Most important of all, however, is the endgame stuff. 4’s endgame is kind of a mixed bag in that events like world bosses, Hell tides, and Legion spawns are considered fun and help break up the repetitive grind, but it always feels as though the game still needs to find its footing in this area.
While it is a major improvement over Diablo 3’s early days before Reaper of Souls. 3 eventually nailed its endgame with the introduction of Rifts, Greater Rifts, and Seasons, which is possibly what has kept players coming back for years.
That said, this could all change once Diablo 4 completes its lifecycle and evolves with new expansions and content updates. As long as Blizzard tries to be overly greedy with its monetization strategies and remains focused on quality, Diablo 4 might as well become the undisputed king of the franchise.
With all that said, what are your thoughts on Blizzard keeping all versions of Diablo alive? Which version of Diablo do you prefer the most? Let us know in the comments below!
