Diablo 4: Crunch rumors ahead of release in June 2023

Diablo 4 is scheduled for release on June 6th, 2023. According to anonymous insider information, this date is final – and apparently puts a lot of pressure on the Blizzard employees involved in the development of the ARPG. Because, as the editorial team of the Washington Post reports, citing information from 15 current and former employees of the Californian developer studio (article behind Paywall), the Diablo 4 team is likely to face a massive crunch.

Mismanagement responsible for various shifts

According to the WP report, the development of Diablo 4 (buy now €79.99 ) has suffered from massive mismanagement over the past five years, which is why Blizzard has had to postpone the game several times. The original release was already planned for 2021, then for December 2022, April 2023 and now for June 2023. The latter date is probably final and Blizzard is not ready to postpone the release again.

“So now we all have to pull together and see how much we’re willing to hurt ourselves to make sure the game releases in good enough shape,” the Washington Post quoted an anonymous Blizzard employee as saying. What that means is anyone’s guess: the team will have to work a lot of overtime to ensure Diablo 4 can be released as planned.

Supporting character was apparently supposed to be raped

Another problematic revelation regarding Diablo 4 concerns the narration from Creative Director Sebastian Stępień (The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077). He had designed a script for the ARPG in which a female love interest of the main character was raped. Your character description made direct reference to the rape, according to Blizzard circles.

Blizzard itself explained that they never saw this story as part of the game, but only wanted to use it for the character’s backstory. Ultimately, however, the idea was rejected as inappropriate. The studio has not yet commented on the allegations of mismanagement and potential crunch.

Source: Reddit