Diablo 4 has launched Season 8, marking the beginning of a series of free updates that will eventually culminate in the game's second expansion, slated for release in 2026. However, the game's core community, known for its dedication and passion, is expressing dissatisfaction with the current pace and nature of updates. These veteran players, who meticulously craft meta builds and engage with the game on a weekly basis, are clamoring for substantial new features, comprehensive reworks, and innovative gameplay elements to keep their interest piqued in this nearly two-year-old action role-playing game.
While Diablo 4 also boasts a large casual player base that enjoys straightforward monster-blasting, it's the dedicated core community that forms the backbone of the game's ecosystem. This group has been vocal in expressing their expectations to Blizzard, hoping for more depth and engagement in the game's future developments.
The release of Diablo 4's 2025 roadmap—the first of its kind for the game—has sparked significant backlash among players. Concerns arose about the content planned for 2025, including Season 8, with many questioning whether there would be enough fresh content to sustain their interest. The community's reaction was so intense that a Diablo community manager stepped into the main thread on the Diablo 4 subreddit to clarify the roadmap's ambiguity: "We added fewer details to the later parts of the roadmap to accommodate for things the team is still working on," they explained. "This isn't all that's coming in 2025 :)." Even former Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra, now a corporate executive at Microsoft, chimed in on the discussion.
Diablo 4's 2025 roadmap touches on 2026. Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment.
Season 8 launches amidst this backdrop, introducing its own set of controversial changes. One of the most significant alterations is to the game's battle pass, which now mirrors the structure of Call of Duty's, allowing players to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. However, this update comes with a reduction in the virtual currency awarded, leaving players with fewer resources to purchase subsequent battle passes.
In an extensive interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and lead seasons designer Deric Nunez addressed the community's reaction to the roadmap. They confirmed plans to update the game's skill tree, a long-requested feature by players, and provided insight into the reasoning behind the changes to the battle pass system.
