Three expansion packs for Diablo III. The Diablo games we never got
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In 2014, Reaper of Souls was released, three years later the modest Rise of the Necromancer debuted - and it was clear that aside from these two add-ons, there should have been one more suitably sized expansion for Diablo III.. Blizzard hasn't said anything on the subject, but there have been so many reports online - including from trusted sources such as Jason Schreier - that there's absolutely no doubt that the project, tentatively titled Diablo III: The King in the North, is real.
I mean, it was real - until it went into the shredder, to the disbelief of the development team. Diablo III was to be supported for "years and years and years". (as one of the creators expressed before the release), so after the unexpectedly warm reception of Reaper of Souls, the next expansion seemed like a foregone conclusion. Well, the snag is that the first expansion was an artistic success - but not a commercial one. And anyway, supposedly for Blizzard's management the financial results of Diablo III were not satisfactory enough to allocate more resources to the production of another real expansion (the company was hurting over the lack of microtransactions that would be a source of steady income).
The content of the expansion that was ready was scrapped, the whole has been dismembered and released for free in updates. As a result, we received access to locations such as Ruins of Sescheron and Greyhollow Island. Blizzard supposedly wanted to win the applause of malcontents this way. Did it succeed in doing so? Even so, the applause didn't last long. After the release of the Rise of the Necromancers, a small DLC rather than a proper expansion, it became clear that the development of Diablo III, which had been struggling for quite some time, was de facto coming to an end.
Diablo and Dark Souls walk into a bar...
As a grand finale, we are left with the most electrifying (this time without irony) project to discuss. Even before the development of Diablo IIIcame to an end, Blizzard started working on a completely new game in the series. The project was scrapped before Diablo III 's development came to an end, but the output of Team 3 between 2014 and 2016, could have given birth to one of the most intriguing Blizzard ventures in its whole history.
On paper, Project Hades - for that was its codename - looked divine. Influenced by the Dark Souls series, a challenging third-person action RPG with a dark, gothic, Diablo-like atmosphere - who wouldn't want to try such a game? Oh, there is surely a group of orthodox fans who would boo such an announcement at BlizzCon. However, there is no doubt that such a group would be less numerous than the one that booed Diablo Immortal in 2018.
Unfortunately, what was electrifying on paper was reportedly not working very well in reality. Several developers from whom Jason Schreier learned about the game revealed that Project Hades had problems from the beginning and struggled to take satisfactory shape. The decision to delete it was based on these reasons rather than on the fact that it was different from traditional Diablo. Josh Mosqueira, who headed up the project (and previously helmed Reaper of Souls), might be able to shed more light on the matter, but so far he's refusing to comment - despite no longer working with Blizzard. Maybe in a few years?
