After the poor reaction to Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and the presumed death of classic Metroid, Nintendo seemingly tried to get ahead of the Metroid: Samus Returns announcement by showing Metroid Prime 4 first. It is unknown if Blizzard announcing Diablo 4 at the same time would have mitigated the response, but companies have done similar things before. The internet has produced an intense backlash to Diablo Immortal's announcement, which Blizzard confesses they did not expect, with some of the more vocal detractors openly wishing for the game to get cancelled. It is possible that Blizzard thought that announcement served the same purpose as the video, but it hard to speculate on their reasoning for choosing not to announce Diablo 4. The timeline matches with a blog post from Blizzard a few weeks ago, where the company tried to clamp down on expectations by more or less saying Diablo 4 is coming, but won't be at the show in any form. Instead, the show ended with the Immortal announcement, concluding the conference on somewhat of a low note for fans in attendance as they sat silently waiting for a 'One More Thing' coda.

According to a report from Kotaku, however, Blizzard was debating whether to mention Diablo 4 is in development at the same time and ultimately decided against it.Īccording to Kotaku's sources, the original intention was to announce Diablo Immortal, then end on a video of Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham confirming Diablo 4's existence and saying that the game is still development and not yet ready to show. The announcement stung certain fans, many of whom got extremely upset at the new game, partly because it is the only announced Diablo project on the horizon. Last week, Blizzard's keynote speech at BlizzCon ended with Diablo Immortal, a mobile Diablo game made in collaboration with Chinese mobile developer NetEase.

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