Update: Blizzard says it never had plans to announce Diablo 4 at BlizzCon

Blizzard has denied reports this morning that it cancelled plans to announce Diablo 4 at BlizzCon, saying it didn’t pull anything at the last minute.

The publisher doesn’t mention the Kotaku story directly, but told IGN it didn’t have plans for any other announcements.

“We didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements,” said a Blizzard spokesperson, noting this is a rare instant where it has commented on speculation.

“We do continue to have different teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects, and we look forward to announcing when the time is right.”

Original story: Blizzard cancelled plans to announce Diablo 4 at the last minute – report

Blizzard was caught off guard by the negative reaction to the announcement of Diablo Immortal, a mobile game, at BlizzCon. However, it was almost a very different scenario, as Blizzard had planned to announce Diablo 4 alongside Immortal, but changed its plans at the last minute.

That’s according to a report by Kotaku, who references two sources familiar with Blizzard’s announcement plans. It wasn’t going to be a major announcement, just confirmation that Diablo 4 is in development but not ready to show yet — similar to Bethesda’s approach with The Elder Scrolls 6, which has been announced but is clearly years away from release.

Blizzard reportedly changed plans in the weeks leading up to the convention, primarily because the development team wasn’t ready to commit to Diablo 4 officially being out there.

The game is said to have been in development for four years, but has changed dramatically in that period, across multiple directors, and may continue to change. The final product may be nothing like Diablo 4 as it stands today.

Diablo 3 launched on Windows PC and Mac back in 2012. It followed on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, and most recently on Switch just last week, on 2 November 2018.