While tons of new updates are coming to Diablo, including a new Netflix series, Diablo 4 Season 15, a Switch 2 port, and more, the biggest reveal for the franchise at BlizzCon 2026 was the announcement of Diablo V, coming in 2029.

IGN sat down exclusively with the team behind the upcoming game, including Game Director Joe Shely, Narrative Director Jennifer Helper, and Production Director Tiffany Wat, who gave us tons of new details about Diablo 5, including how it’s already past early development.

IGN: I know probably nobody has missed the Diablo 5 announcement, but can you guys just kind of give sort of a top-level view of what the game will be?

Joe Shely: Diablo 5 is a world where Sanctuary has fallen and Diablo has won. That means that the world is in an apocalypse. The fate that players have been trying to prevent for many years throughout other Diablo games has happened. Other heroes rose up, tried to stop Diablo, and failed. Diablo sits on the throne of Westmarch and has conquered all of the Western continent.

IGN: Diablo 4 still has some life in it. What are you planning to achieve in Diablo 5 that you don't think that as a whole would've been able to be achievable in Diablo 4?

Shely: Diablo 4 has bright support. It's fully supported by the team. We were just announcing earlier today, coming to Diablo 4, the Amazon, the Season of Hell's legacy, Diablo 4 is coming to Switch 2, and there will continue to be ongoing support for Diablo 4. There's many reasons for players to keep playing. And of course, we've been in development for some time on Diablo 5. We're in full production and it's been really an exciting time for us to be able to get to share it with players.

Jennifer Helper: We’re bringing Diablo back and Diablo should never be an “and another thing” in a Diablo game. We need a full campaign and full story based around Diablo. [With Diablo 5], we've jumped a hundred years ahead to tell that story so that Diablo 4 has lots of space to continue their story and their development while we're doing Diablo 5.

Tiffany Wat: [Diablo 5] is an opportunity for us to really lean into some of the incredible innovations, both on the technology, but also on the gameplay and system side. We are bringing more classes than you’ve ever seen in a Diablo game. We talked about bringing back the procedural world, something that was really popular in prior Diablo games, and we leaned into it in Diablo 4 with our dungeon system. In Diablo 5, we really felt that this is such a really fun and integral way to be playing Diablo, and we wanted to bring it back to both the overworld and the dungeon systems.

Joe talks to his team a lot about the importance of constant discovery and not knowing what's around the corner. That adds an element of danger to the world of Sanctuary and that really ties well with the story that Jennifer and her team are trying to tell. Being able to tie all of that together and really reach for the gameplay ambitions that Joe and his team have, it made a lot of sense for us to just embark on a sequel, and we've been doing it for a little bit of time now.

IGN: It seems like you guys are going for more of that traditional overworld that people travel to in different spaces. So we're not going to have that open world vibe like we did in Diablo 4.

Wat: There are no more towns because Diablo and his Dread Commanders have completely destroyed Sanctuary. And so that caravan that you are gathering, these members that you have met, survivors of Sanctuary that are coming along with you to try and just survive, figure out what's going on with Diablo, you're moving from region to region and that gives us a chance to really show what Sanctuary looks like when it's under the Lord of Terror and see the different ways that the Dread Commanders have twisted the world. Joe and I worked together on monsters for over a decade now on Diablo, and man, the monsters team is cooking. So being able to see the twisted, disgusting, horrifying demons that show up at different times in different worlds that you're loading into is just really, really cool.

IGN: When Diablo 5 launches, support seems like it'll continue for Diablo 4 and other games. Do you foresee any challenges with not just player retention, but overall content creation when you have basically five Diablo games in rotation for people to come back to season after season?

Wat: We have dedicated teams for each of those games because those games are important to us and they're really important for our community. I think it really gives us a really great opportunity to be able to collaborate together, to talk with one another. Even though we might be distinct teams, we still work together quite closely because ultimately we are making games for the Diablo community. I think it's the best time to be a Diablo fan.

IGN: The ARPG market is getting larger. How does Diablo evolve in a market when the target audience is split across multiple titles? Do you look to these games to see what types of new things they're making to inject into your games?

Shely: Of course. ARPGs are ultimately systems games underneath everything. And we play everything that relates to Diablo or could give us an idea of what players are enjoying. But in particular, the way that we approach it is by focusing on the things that are really core to Diablo and Diablo really excels at. Things like evolving our combat model, things like making a game that's approachable and has an incredible campaign. We want this to be our best campaign ever.

Some of the crunchiness of Diablo 2 that really speaks to many of the core ARPG players has inspired Diablo 5 with things like stat requirements returning on items, item tiers, which is very much inspired by Diablo 2, and even things like the return of the belt slot or multi-slot items in your inventory.

IGN: Can you talk a little bit actually about the return of the belt slot and about the itemization in Diablo 5 versus say Diablo 4 and how you guys plan to approach that?

Shely: I mean, the simple answer is that the belt slot is generally a more exciting slot than the pants slot. The belt slot is just a reflection of the way that we look at the suite of items that the player can equip. And we always want to balance that so that you have the right amount of different pieces of your gear that you're chasing both between the weapons and the armor. So in terms of evolving the visual style, one of the things that the belt slot lets us do is make gear sets that are more cohesive between the chest armor and the pants.

IGN: We see that Diablo is coming back now in Diablo 4, starting with season 15. You've got however many more seasons between now and Diablo 5 launches. Is there anything you're worried about with Diablo’s implementation maybe in Diablo 4 versus how he's going to appear in Diablo 5?

Helper: We also not only are a hundred years ahead, we are back on the Western continent. So Diablo 4’s content is all in the East and we are back in Westmarch, which everyone is familiar with from the first three games. And Westmarch has expanded over the entire Western continent. So we've got a lot of future history of the Western continent that we haven't seen in a really long time that we're going to be able to cover that is a completely open space for us.

IGN: Last question. When will we learn more about Diablo 5?

Shely: When we decided to announce that we've been working on Diablo V, we wanted to make sure that we shared some meaningful updates, talking about classes, talking about the return of the Demon Hunter, the Monk, new classes like the Plague Knight, things like itemization that we talked about before. And we want to continue that conversation. And in particular, the reason to talk about the game now and continue that conversation into 2027, when we'll share more about it, is to be able to talk with players, talk with everyone out there who loves Diablo, and build the game alongside them and by listening to the things that they want.

Among the many announcements during yesterday’s BlizzCon Opening Ceremony, the news that Diablo is getting its own show at Netflix has at least one of the franchise’s development teams chomping at the bit. Yesterday, Blizzard president Johanna Faries revealed that a Diablo animated series is in the works but admitted she “can’t spill the beans” just yet on exactly what the new show entails.

Regardless, the development team behind Diablo 4 says it’s quite possibly the reveal they are most excited about, even more so than the news that Diablo 5 is coming out in 2029, Diablo 4 is getting a Switch 2 port, Spawn is coming to Diablo Immortal, and the arrival of the Amazon class. I sat down with Brent Gibson, Diablo 4’s Game Director, and Owen Leach, Season Lead for Diablo 4 - Hell’s Legacy, after yesterday’s news to break everything down.

“Even though I have no information and can't share anything, the fact that we're getting a show [is what I’m most excited about]," Gibson says. “I'm a story guy. I want to see more story, as much story as you can get. We’re narrowing in on finding the creative team [for the show] and we're delivering on what Johanna was saying, [that] we're Blizzard Entertainment. I think Diablo's a perfect world to start telling those stories, so I couldn't be more happy that we're getting a show.”

During yesterday’s presentation, Faries also noted that Overwatch, Warcraft and “perhaps even some…other [Blizzard] universes” could get their own series. But for now, news of a Diablo adaptation is proving to be more than enough to keep the development teams buzzing.

“The show is my fan answer [for what I’m most excited about],” Leach says. “I've seen animated shows on Netflix and I'm like, ‘Hell yes.’"

“I think this world of IPs existing and multiple media is the Wild West,” Gibson adds. “You actually can't predict how those mechanisms work. You watch other games that have gotten their shows and how that's plussed things up and changed things. Fallout is a really great example of that. You see this massive resurgence in the game because of the show and I love that. I have no idea where it's going but it's the right time and I'm super excited about it.”

Along with the new Netflix show, Gibson and Leach say there’s plenty for fans to be excited about in the Diablo universe.

“Being the Season Lead of Hell's Legacy, I am so excited for Diablo to be in Diablo 4,” Leach says. “I'm losing my mind and that's just one boss. We’ve got 20 new bosses. Na-Krul from Diablo: Hellfire. I'm sure people in the crowd are going to lose their minds when they find out about that. So September 15th, I can't wait. I'm really excited for players to celebrate the 30th anniversary with us.”

Gibson says that he’s also looking forward to players getting their hands on Diablo 4: Age of Hatred Collection when it launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on September 15.

“It's about damn time,” Gibson says. “We've been talking about what it means to be on handheld platforms since day one. I'm floored at the level of quality they were able to get it to. There is an audience there that we haven't been servicing. I think it was on a list of top 10 games that everybody wanted to have on the Switch 2 from launch. And I'm like, ‘Yeah, me too. Here we go.’ So I'm very happy.”

“I like the flexibility of being able to play wherever I want,” Leach adds. “I used to play on the Steam Deck, but having a specific build for the console is even better. So now I'm playing on my couch because I'm lazy and then some days I'm playing on my PC. That's how we do it.”

For more on BlizzCon 2026, check out everything announced at the Opening Ceremony.

World of Warcraft: Forever, a Classic+ iteration of the long-running franchise that lets players return to an updated vanilla Azeroth featuring new zones, dungeons, raids, and more, was announced at yesterday’s BlizzCon 2026 Opening Ceremony. And now, the game’s developers are revealing why they think the new take on the classic game (along with the numerous other WoW updates announced yesterday) renders the long-speculated World of Warcraft 2 unnecessary.

I sat down with Kris Zierhut, World of Warcraft: Forever’s Principal Designer, and Mike Nuthals, the game’s Lead Encounter Designer, immediately following yesterday’s announcement to break down the game’s many new features and to discuss why they think it’s even better than any potential WoW sequel.

“I think one of the things that's singularly great about WoW is we have this game and this world and this design that has been continuously developed for the last 25 years,” Zierhut says. “And we keep making it better. We made the graphics better, we made the rendering better, we made the lighting better; all that new stuff we showed on stage today.

“But we've also made the way the engine draws things move more efficiently. The way the server runs, handling players and moving them around, and all the things that handle spells and combat, all of that's been made more efficient and better over the years. We have this incredible engine and server infrastructure driving the game that is second to none. Why would you throw that away and start over?”

Zierhut went on to say that, in addition to the technical advancements in World of Warcraft: Forever, the team is still invested in building the story of the current WoW universe.

“It’s not like there's something wrong with the story,” Zierhut says. “We love the story. So going back to the beginning [with World of Warcraft: Forever], there's a chance to explore that story in new and different ways. So it's really hard to say, ‘Well, what would a WoW 2 give you that World of Warcraft: Forever isn't already giving you?’”

As revealed on stage yesterday, World of Warcraft: Forever won’t merely be a rehashed update of the original. In addition to “updated world visuals and lighting,” the game will feature 10 and 20-player raids, more than 1,000 new quests, new race and class combos, a new Skyborne race, and more. Nuthals and Zierhut say there are a few key features they’re most eager for fans to experience.

“I'm so excited for our players to uncover all of our new items,” Nuthals says. “All of the dungeons and raids have had an itemization pass. There's so much new to explore. I'm really anxious for our players to get in there and explore the world, find all the cool little nooks and crannies, find their really cool loot and just have a great time.

[And] the thing I think I'm most excited about with our raids are the raid sizes. We're going to have Barrow Deeps which will be our 10-player raid. We're going to have the Hyjal Summit, which will be 20, and then Onyxia will be 40. I think the thing that gets me most excited about that is getting folks to find social groups and friends to fill those groups up.”

“The thing I'm most excited about is the camping feature,” Zierhut says. “So you may remember in World of Warcraft in the past, you could put down a cooking fire and you could sit and cook your food. The cooking fire has now become the basic campfire. And while you're sitting there waiting, because you have to sit there for a minute, another player [could walk] by and they add to it. And now you are [all] there and you’ve got to wait a minute you're like, ‘Hey, what quest are you working on? Oh, we’re working on the same quest. Hey, how about we group up?’ And that's the moment the friendships, relationships, and guilds are born. And I'm really excited about what that's going to do for our game.”

While World of Warcraft: Forever will include many new updates for players to explore, Zierhut and Nuthals say it won’t stray too far from what players love about the original.

“We're not going to make massive changes to the lore,” Zierhut says. “We're not going to change the way the world feels, but we can maybe have a slightly different sequence of what's happening. It doesn't contradict what was in Classic, but it's a little bit different. So we have room for a slightly different story. Nobody has to worry about problems with the timeline.”

“Our pillars are very universal, core to the experience of playing Classic WoW,” Nuthals says. “That’s always what we're thinking of in the back of our head. It's exhilarating to see what our players are going to do when they get into it and play it.”

World of Warcraft: Forever launches November 4.