Diablo 4 launches June 6, Blizzard Entertainment confirmed during The Game Awards 2022 on Thursday. Those who pre-order the long-awaited sequel to 2012’s Diablo 3 will get early access to the game; Diablo 4 will launch on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Blizzard announced the release date with a new trailer showcasing Diablo 4’s new features, not the least of which is the impressive open world of Sanctuary. In an interview with Polygon, Blizzard designers touted its familiar-but-enhanced setting as the game’s “newest character.”
In this expansive, morbid, haunted Sanctuary, players awaken in a frozen cave, making a break for safety in a nearby village boarded up against frightful beasts roaming the land. It’s “a far cry from the brighter, cheerier art style of Diablo 3,” our preview notes, although it’s not like that was a Broadway musical, either.
Diablo 4 was first announced at BlizzCon 2019 and was expected in 2022, although Blizzard never gave any formal launch window before this summer. High staff turnover and the separation of two senior developers during the publisher’s reckoning with sex discrimination and harassment claims in 2021 pushed the game’s launch out of 2022 entirely.
Thursday, on the afternoon before Diablo 4’s launch announcement, The Washington Post published a lengthy report describing a studio bracing for overtime “crunch” and dreading the June deadline that Activision leadership has given them.
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