Blizzard has announced that Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV will be further postponed when publishing its quarterly results. The company previously stated clearly that these two games had yet to be released in 2022. It is unclear whether that will still be achieved; Blizzard does not list release dates.
In a presentation devoted to its quarterly earnings coverage, Blizzard said it still plans to release a substantial amount of content next year, but is now slated for a later release of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally planned. . This change means that the expected ‘financial improvement’ will be postponed, the company writes. Whether that means the games will no longer be released before 2023 is unclear.
According to Blizzard, developers have made significant progress in completing the games in recent quarters, but the idea is that extra development time contributes to, among other things, better support after release and that the games can then reach their full potential.
It became clear in February that the two games, both announced in 2019, would no longer be released this year. Activision Blizzard then indicated that it expects good results from Call of Duty and World of Warcraft in the current year, but also said the following: “At the same time, we are making significant progress on our development pipeline for other important intellectual property, which we expect to grow further.” expected in 2022.”
Blizzard also points to the new leadership at both Diablo IV and Overwatch. Blizzard director Mike Ybarra also specifically mentions this in an oral explanation of the quarterly figures. For example, in the case of Overwatch 2, executive producer Chacko Sonny left in September. Jeff Kaplan already left in April; he was the previous lead developer of Overwatch 2. Diablo IV director Luis Barriga left in August. No clear, official reason was given for Barriga’s departure, for example, although it was often assumed that this had to do with the lawsuit in California, which revolves around sexual harassment in the workplace.
Activision Blizzard posted revenue of $2.1 billion in the third quarter, up from $1.95 billion in the same period a year ago.