Every Diablo game I can think of has been about stopping Hell before the worst happens, so there’s something a little bit cheeky about Blizzard using the series’ 30th anniversary, and the BlizzCon 2026 opening ceremony in Anaheim on 12 September, to announce Diablo V for Spring 2029 on the premise that the worst has already happened. As PC Gamer’s live coverage put it, “The heroes are gone, Sanctuary has fallen, and Diablo has won.” It’s set roughly a century after Diablo IV, according to both PC Gamer and NME, and the question Blizzard keeps putting at the centre of it is what you must become when the world has already fallen, which (let’s be honest) is a far more interesting hook than yet another prophecy about somebody’s bloodline.
From Blizzard’s own write-up of the Forging the Next Era panel, you play the Heir to Westmarch, travelling through a world being actively reshaped by Diablo’s conquest. Instead of the usual safe town you get a caravan of survivors that grows as you go, carrying merchants, craftspeople and companions whose stories feed the side quests, with MMOHuts noting a former Sister of the Sightless Eye and a treasure goblin among them. The Outerhaven names that goblin Zarg, and adds that Diablo has been ruling Sanctuary for seven years by the time you arrive. The overworld and dungeons are both procedurally generated again, and apparently shift as the corruption spreads, so a region you’ve already cleared can come back with different paths, terrain and monsters, which as far as I can tell is the system the panel called Terror Forming.
Three classes were shown – the returning Demon Hunter with twin crossbows, the returning Monk with hand-to-hand combat and holy power, and a brand new Plague Knight who spreads disease across the battlefield. If The Outerhaven’s panel notes are right, the game is meant to launch with more classes than every previous Diablo combined, though nobody has put an actual number on that yet. The itemisation is where it looks most like a love letter to Diablo II, with bigger items taking up more room in your inventory, stat requirements on gear (still being experimented with, by the sound of it), belts coming back as something you equip, gear-based sets, and runes and runewords as part of the crafting.
The honest caveat is that Spring 2029 is a very long way off, Blizzard hasn’t announced platforms, the class list is three and counting, and regular development updates aren’t due to start until 2027, so nearly everything above could look quite different by the time it ships. In the meantime Blizzard has confirmed there are no further Diablo IV expansions planned, although seasons will carry on setting up the story, with game director Brent Gibson telling PC Gamer that “Diablo 4 players, they love the game, there’s tons of them out there.” Season of Hell’s Legacy started on 15 September, the Amazon class pack arrives in the first half of 2027, and the Age of Hatred Collection landed on Nintendo Switch 2 the same day as the season. I’d say it’s worth signing up at Diablo5.Blizzard.com if a Diablo that starts after the apocalypse sounds like your kind of thing, and keeping an eye out for those updates from 2027.
Blizzard – Diablo V: Forging the Next Era, Blizzard – Diablo’s Next Era recap, Diablo5.Blizzard.com, PC Gamer – Opening Ceremony live blog, NME – BlizzCon announcements, MMOHuts – Diablo V classes, The Outerhaven – panel recap, GamesRadar+ – BlizzCon live