Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 delayed indefinitely; Activision Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal...

[midian182]

What just happened? Bad news for anyone looking forward to playing Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2: Activision Blizzard has announced that both games have been delayed, with no official launch windows given. In all likelihood, we won't see the next entries in each respective series until 2023 at the earliest.

Neither the highly anticipated Diablo 4 nor Overwatch 2 had been given official release dates, but Activision Blizzard, during its recent third-quarter 2021 earnings call, said, "While we are still planning to deliver a substantial amount of content from Blizzard next year, we are now planning for a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally envisaged."

The company said the delay was so more work could be put into developing the games. "It has become apparent that some of the Blizzard content planned for next year will benefit from more development time to reach its full potential," reads the report.

Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 delayed pic.twitter.com/4pr9c0OEdz

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) November 2, 2021

When Blizzard first unveiled Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV at Blizzcon 2019, it said the games were expected to arrive sometime in 2021, but it appears neither will arrive until 2023 at the earliest.

A delay isn't totally unexpected. As a result of the ongoing sexual harassment/discrimination lawsuit brought against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Diablo 4 has lost its game director (Luis Barriga) and lead designer (Jesse McCree). Overwatch character McCree, named after the designer, was recently renamed to Cole Cassidy.

It's not been smooth sailing for Overwatch 2, either. Director Jeff Kaplan departed the studio in April, and Chacko Sonny, executive producer on Overwatch, left in September.

Earlier this year, Blizzard announced that mobile spin-off Diablo Immortal was also being delayed, until the first half of 2022.

Activision added that the Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 delays will give the teams behind them "some extra time to complete production and continue growing their creative resources to support the titles after launch will ensure [the] releases delight and engage their communities for many years into the future."

There was more troubling news for Activision Blizzard in its earnings call. Jen Oneal, who was appointed co-leader alongside Mike Ybarra just three months ago after president J. Allen Brack stepped down, has announced she is also leaving the under-fire company.

Oneal wrote that seeing Blizzard employees "working towards meaningful, lasting change" inspired her to "step out and explore how I can do more to have games and diversity intersect, and hopefully make a broader industry impact that will benefit Blizzard (and other studios) as well."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92054-overwatch-2-diablo-4-delayed-activision-blizzard-co.html

 

[merikafyeah]

A diversity hire leaving after only 3 months? I am shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.

 

[Yenega]

They are driving this company into the ground it seems.

 

[gamerk2]

They are driving this company into the ground it seems.

Pretty much what happens at the end of every corporate merger/acquisition. Pretty sure most of Blizzards people are out of management positions; it's all Activision now, and their toxic culture.

And lets be real: It's only a "problem" now because it's affecting Activision financially. There's no real push to actually "do" anything besides shuffle a few mid-level people out and add some window dressing.

 

[Shaitan]

Bwhaahah. NO ONE cares about the harassment and *****ic gender equality BS. Do you know what people really want? They want:
- good games
- good support
- FUN
If I were to choose between diversity hires at Blizzard or good old sexual jokes and a great games, guess which would I choose? I couldn't possibly care less about any of your internal scandals. What I do care about is:
- no skins or XP buy
- no microtransactions
- LAN/uptime
- timely updates
- excellent storyline
Do you honestly think that the people buying your stuff honestly care about the gender quotas of the developers? News flash: we do NOT.
That's exactly why Kingdom Come: Deliverance sold and people don't care about these stupid progressive "issues".

 

[Hysc84]

Well you got Path of Exiles

 

[ET3D]

A diversity hire leaving after only 3 months? I am shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.

"Diversity hire"? You obviously have no clue. She's been producing games for over 20 years and studio head for Vicarious Visions since 2016. Vicarious Visions got bought by Activision Blizzard this year, and unless you somehow think it was a "diversity buyout"... Well, as I said, clueless.

 

[Soulburn74]

Regardless of the reasons why, I'll take a delay instead of a release that is too early. That is one good thing Blizzard has been pretty decent with........

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Beginning to get some Duke Nukem vibes from the ever lengthening release date for DIV. Next we'll hear they've scrapped the engine and started from scratch and will announce a 2030 release date.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Regardless of the reasons why, I'll take a delay instead of a release that is too early. That is one good thing Blizzard has been pretty decent with........

Maybe they can do a D1 and D3 remaster to fill in the gap. Seriously D3 was released in 2012 and you think more than a decade is warranted to get it right. This is way beyond taking your time to get it "right". And from what we've seen already the engine isn't that great.

 

[merikafyeah]

"Diversity hire"? You obviously have no clue. She's been producing games for over 20 years and studio head for Vicarious Visions since 2016. Vicarious Visions got bought by Activision Blizzard this year, and unless you somehow think it was a "diversity buyout"... Well, as I said, clueless.

You think all this "muh diversity and inclusion" nonsense didn't exist 20 years ago? What makes you think she couldn't have been a diversity hire back then as well? She's currently on the board of "Women in Games Internatioinal" (which recently received a $1M grant from Blizzard) in which she's overseeing how "diversity and games intersect". She's not leading women towards making great games, she's pushing an agenda with a bunch of checkboxes.

 

[erickmendes]

It's no secret that Blizzard is dying a slow death for years now... Activision only got Blizzard so it can keep the IP rights for whenever they want to milk away one of Blizzard IP's and of course milk WoW till it die...

Heroes of The Storm is a perfect example of game that have being living in life support for years now... Overwatch seems to be joinning the life support ward, but I would rather bet in a annoucement from "Blizzard/Activision" killing both games on one hit...

I bet they will simply try deliver Diablo IV any way they can, because is too big of an IP to simply let it die off, but I bet it will launch with more bugs then Cyberpunk, they will make billions of pre launch sales, then will ask sorry for everyone, fix the game launching patches for at least a year, and still get millions of dollars out of it. Then just send "Blizzard" to the pet cemetery so it can be brought back to life when fans urge for Diablo The V...

Big money studios are killing the good old big IPs.

 

[Yenega]

It's no secret that Blizzard is dying a slow death for years now... Activision only got Blizzard so it can keep the IP rights for whenever they want to milk away one of Blizzard IP's and of course milk WoW till it die...

Heroes of The Storm is a perfect example of game that have being living in life support for years now... Overwatch seems to be joinning the life support ward, but I would rather bet in a annoucement from "Blizzard/Activision" killing both games on one hit...

I bet they will simply try deliver Diablo IV any way they can, because is too big of an IP to simply let it die off, but I bet it will launch with more bugs then Cyberpunk, they will make billions of pre launch sales, then will ask sorry for everyone, fix the game launching patches for at least a year, and still get millions of dollars out of it. Then just send "Blizzard" to the pet cemetery so it can be brought back to life when fans urge for Diablo The V...

Big money studios are killing the good old big IPs.

Actually Blizzard merged with Activision. Activision did not buy them.

Blizzard were never an independent studio. Vivendi owned them before the merge, but wanted out.

Blizzard have tons of popular IPs. I doubt they will half-*** Overwatch 2 and D4, hence the delay.

I will take a delay over a Cyberpunk-release any time.

If they just wanted to milk, they might as well not have delay them.

The problem with Blizzard is that most of their popular games and IPs are RTS games; Warcraft, Starcraft etc. And RTS games are pretty much dead at this point. Very few gamers are interested in RPG games.

Personally I would love to see a Warcraft 4 but I highly doubt it will happen.

World of Starcraft?

It has been a long time since Blizzard acutally made something new. Overwatch was literally a ripoff of Paladins for example.

 

[Zinixo]

They are nothing but a bunch of anal dwelling butt monkeys. I for one will not buy anything from them again.

 

[Hexic]

Overwatch was literally a ripoff of Paladins for example.

Not the case. Paladins is a cheap knock-off of OW.

Overwatch was announced 9 months before Paladins was announced.

Overwatch was also released 4 months prior to Paladins being released.

You can tell just by watching a gameplay video (let alone playing the game as well) who copied who; let alone overall success.