Diablo IV Will Not Receive Any More Expansions, Blizzard Confirms Diablo V Development Takes Priority

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo IV will not receive any further expansions, with Lord of Hatred — released in April 2026 — now serving as the game's final major paid expansion. The shift was laid out by Diablo IV game director Brent Gibson in an interview with PC Gamer at BlizzCon 2026, and ties directly to the studio's decision to officially reveal Diablo V for a Spring 2029 release window during the show's opening ceremony.

"We're all focused on [Diablo IV] seasons and getting to Diablo V," Gibson said. "We feel like we told the Story of Hatred. We had a great conclusion with Lord of Hatred with what we have with Mephisto, and we are moving towards telling the Story of Terror." The events of Diablo V take place 100 years after everything happening in Diablo IV, which Gibson said gives the team "a lot of room" to keep telling story through seasonal updates without committing to another full expansion.

Diablo V director Joe Shely was more direct about the current game's health. "Diablo 4 has bright support," Shely said at BlizzCon. "It's fully supported by the team. We were just announcing earlier today, coming to Diablo 4, the Amazon, the Season of Hell's Legacy, Diablo 4 is coming to Switch 2, and there will continue to be ongoing support for Diablo 4. There's many reasons for players to keep playing."

Season of Hell's Legacy, which begins September 15, is framed as the immediate next step for Diablo IV. The season leans heavily on the franchise's 30th anniversary, with Deckard Cain returning to guide players through encounters with the Prime Evils and a slate of returning bosses from across Diablo's history. The same day, Diablo IV releases on Nintendo Switch 2 as the Age of Hatred Collection, bundling the base game with both paid expansions.

Looking further out, the Amazon class arrives as a standalone DLC pack in the first half of 2027, packaged with four archetypes — Champion, Skirmisher, Ranger and Commander — and the bow and javelin introduced as a new weapon type. Beyond that, there are no more planned expansions, a notable reversal from the early pitch for Diablo IV. In 2023, former Diablo IV general manager Rod Fergusson said Blizzard was planning annual expansions for the game; only two were ever released, Vessel of Hatred in 2024 and Lord of Hatred in April 2026. Fergusson has since left Blizzard to work on the next BioShock game at 2K.

The Diablo V reveal itself came during the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony on September 12, framed by Blizzard as the franchise's first game set after Diablo has already won. Game Director Joe Shely, production director Tiffany Wat and the broader team set up a follow-up panel, Diablo V: Forging the Next Era, for the same afternoon, with the first three playable classes (Demon Hunter, Monk, and the new Plague Knight) and early item design philosophy following shortly after. According to Blizzard's own Diablo V: Forging the Next Era write-up, the development team is now in full production on the sequel, with regular updates planned starting in 2027.

Diablo IV still has a roadmap, just not the one some players expected. Gibson acknowledged that the lack of further expansions has hit a nerve with the community, particularly those who remember the early "annual expansion" framing. "The impression in the community that Diablo 4 is being somewhat written off is understandable," Gibson told PC Gamer, adding that support will continue "for a very long time." The seasonal pipeline will also serve a setup function for Diablo V: the lore bridge between the two games needs to plant the seeds of Diablo's eventual victory, and the team is watching how players respond to each season's story beats before locking in the sequel's narrative direction.

No platforms, pricing or exact release date for Diablo V have been announced. Sign-ups for future Diablo V updates are open at the official site, and Blizzard's full recap of the BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony is available on its newsroom at https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24301453/everything-announced-at-blizzcon-2026-opening-ceremony . The studio's Diablo V: Forging the Next Era write-up lives at https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24297204/diablo-v-forging-the-next-era .