混世魔头
The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo Jason Schreier On November 2, 2018, Blizzard closed its annual BlizzCon keynote by announcing, to scattered applause, a Diablo game for phones. It was a baffling marketing decision that immediately set off controversy, as fans of Blizzard’s iconic action-role-playing game franchise loudly accused the company of neglecting its PC players. Perhaps Blizzard’s marketing department had expected Diablo fans to be excited about Diablo Immortal, but the announcement was yet another strange move in a string of bizarre Diablo-related decisions over the past few years. After Diablo III’s disastrous launch on PC in 2012 and a road to redemption that culminated with 2014’s expansion, Reaper of Souls, fans had expected long-term support and perhaps a second expansion for the third Diablo. It had sold more than 30 million copies, after all. But since 2014, updates to Diablo III have been light and sporadic, and four years later, Blizzard’s announcement of Diablo Immortal at a time when fans are hungry for any news of a Diablo IV has led to big questions about the future of the franchise. What’s really going on with Diablo? What happened to Diablo III’s long-term plan? Is Diablo Immortal, developed in part outside of Blizzard by the Chinese company NetEase, a sign that Blizzard has lowered its standards or abandoned its core audience? Is there a Diablo IV in development, or has Blizzard given up on PC games in favor of phones? To try to answer these questions, I’ve spoken to 11 current and former Blizzard employees, all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to press. They’ve told me about a canceled second expansion for Diablo III, and about Diablo IV, which is indeed in development but was rebooted in 2016. They’ve talked about the series’ popularity in China, which is one of the main reasons for Diablo Immortal’s existence, and about how the specter of the canceled game Titan hangs over many of Blizzard’s decisions. Some of those people also raised questions about Activision’s influence on the beloved video game company. Activision merged with the publisher Vivendi (at the time, Blizzard’s holding company) to become Activision Blizzard in 2008, but over the past decade Blizzard has prided itself in remaining a separate entity. With its own management structure and its own campus in Irvine, California, Blizzard has always stood out from Activision’s other divisions and subsidiaries. (Activision HQ is based about an hour northwest, in Santa Monica.) Rather than sticking to strict production cycles that result in, say, annual Call of Duty games for Activision, Blizzard has traditionally given its developers as much time as possible. That’s one of the reasons the company has been renowned for making some of the greatest games in the world. This year, however, Blizzard employees say that one of the biggest ongoing conversations has been cutting costs. To fans, and even to some people who work or have worked at Blizzard, there’s a concern that something deep within the company’s culture may be changing. When reached for comment, Blizzard sent over an e-mailed statement, attributed to a company spokesperson, that I’ll quote throughout this piece. “Blizzard has been and continues to be a developer-driven company,” the company said. “All of the games we create represent ideas our game developers themselves are passionate about. This is as true for Diablo Immortal as it was for Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, or Overwatch, or any game we’ve ever made. We believe that the best games to make are ones that our developers believe in.” In late 2013 or perhaps early 2014, not long before the release of Reaper of Souls, Blizzard made an internal announcement that shocked the development team: Diablo III’s second expansion was canceled. Team 3, the Blizzard department responsible for Diablo, hadn’t done a ton of work on this second expansion—they were mostly focused on Reaper—but it was planned as their next project. And now it wasn’t happening. “What they told the team was, ‘You’ve finished Reaper of Souls, it’s really good. But we think the best thing for the IP is to move to Diablo IV in whatever form that’ll be,’” said one person who was there. “The overall sense on the team, at least in my impression, was that there was a vote of no confidence from the executives. They thought Diablo III was a giant fuck-up.” Had Diablo III really been a giant fuck-up? Sure, the highly anticipated action-RPG had launched in May 2012 to immediate catastrophe, as fans across the world tried to open up the game and found themselves unable to play thanks to the dreaded “Error 37,” a warning-turned-meme that popped up every time the game was inaccessible. There were other problems, too, like a brutal difficulty spike and the real-money auction house, which allowed players to buy and sell loot for cash, skewing Diablo III’s item balance. Throughout 2012 and 2013, Blizzard’s Team 3 addressed many of these issues, overhauling the difficulty system and removing the auction house. Diablo III evolved into a beloved game, and with Reaper of Souls, which came out in March 2014, the team turned it into one of the most critically acclaimed action-RPGs out there. Why, then, would Blizzard cancel the second one? “A lot of people felt stunned by it,” said the person who was there. “I think a lot of them felt like, ‘We made mistakes on Diablo III, but we learned and we made Reaper to show what we could do. We have fixed it, and Reaper’s really good.’ I think a lot of people felt like we’d figured it out and we know how to do this, and expansion two, whatever it would’ve been, would’ve been the highest expression of that… To have them pull the plug without really seeing how Reaper did really stung.” It’s still not clear why Blizzard wouldn’t want to support a game that had been so commercially successful, but the theory on Team 3 was that Blizzard’s management had lost faith in Diablo III and saw it as a failure, even before Reaper launched. “The perception overall was that management thought, ‘This team really screwed up,’” said one person who was there. “They could’ve held off a few months and seen how Reaper did, but in their mind [Diablo III] was irredeemable.” (When Reaper launched on PC in late March, 2014, Blizzard said it sold 2.7 million copies in its first week—a big number, but only a fraction of the ~15 million copies that Diablo III had sold across PC and consoles.) When asked, Blizzard did not address the cancellation of this expansion, but as part of a broader statement, spoke about cancellations in general. “As far as game cancellations, we see that as a strength—a reflection of our commitment to quality, and how we’ve always operated,” the spokesperson said. “Historically, we’ve launched about 50% of the total projects we’ve worked on over the past three decades—those are the ones we consider representative of Blizzard quality. Not shipping a game is never an easy decision to make, but it has always been the right decision for us. Cancelling Titan led us to Overwatch, and as another example, cancelling Nomad led us to World of Warcraft.” In March 2014, as fans celebrated the return of Diablo III with the triumphant Reaper of Souls, Team 3 was splitting up. Some developers left the company; others moved to different projects, like World of Warcraft or the nascent Overwatch. Some stuck around to work on patches for Diablo III, but Team 3 was no longer in full swing. “At the point they had the strongest Diablo development team ever, they scattered them all to the winds,” said one person who worked on Reaper of Souls. To those developers, it was a baffling move by Blizzard’s management. Giving the team more time to see how Reaper performed and how the second expansion was shaping up “would’ve been much more Blizzard-like,” that person said. Those who remained on Team 3 began talking about what Diablo IV might look like. Josh Mosqueira, the Canadian transplant who had started on the Diablo III console team before taking the franchise’s reins as director of Reaper of Souls, would lead development on the new project, which was code-named Hades. The goal was to take the franchise in a very different direction. Mosqueira and team designed Hades as a Diablo take on Dark Souls, according to three people familiar with the project. It would be a gothic, challenging dungeon crawler. Rather than maintain the isometric camera angle of the first three Diablo games, it would use an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective. It was such a departure from previous games, some at Blizzard thought they might not even end up calling it Diablo IV. From 2014 until 2016, it was Team 3’s main project, developed alongside a handful of patches and light content updates for Diablo III. Then, like Diablo III’s second expansion before it, Hades was canceled. As with any cancellation, there were likely many reasons for this move, but two people involved with Hades said it was going through rocky development. “It was not shaping up at all,” said one. In the middle of 2016, Mosqueira left Blizzard. It’s not clear whether Mosqueira left because of Hades’ cancellation or if Hades was canceled because he left, but what’s certain is that at that point, the project was shelved. (When reached by Kotaku, Mosqueira declined to comment on this story.) In the coming months, Blizzard’s Team 3 would do two things. The developers, who needed something to work on now that Hades was no more, put together downloadable content for Diablo III called Rise of the Necromancer, a character class add-on that the team hoped would satiate fans who were desperate for more Diablo. And some of them started working on a project code-named Fenris. Fenris is, all of our sources have confirmed, the current incarnation of Diablo IV. Blizzard’s Team 3 has been working on this version of the game since 2016, and some who have seen it say they’re optimistic about the direction. “[Design director] Luis [Barriga] has a very strong vision for that game,” said a former employee, “one that a lot of people are excited about at Blizzard.” “They want to make [Diablo IV] gross, make it dark, [get rid of] anything that was considered cartoony in Diablo III.” One key part of that vision is the art direction. During development of a game, many studios use what they call “pillars”—mantras that help define the game’s goals so that everyone on the team is on the same page. For Fenris, one of those pillars is simple: Embrace the darkness. “There’s a lot of people who felt like Diablo III got away from what made Diablo Diablo in terms of art style and spell effects,” said a current Blizzard employee, adding that Fenris is aiming to look more like the beloved Diablo II. Said another: “They want to make this gross, make it dark, [get rid of] anything that was considered cartoony in Diablo III… Make what people were afraid of in Diablo II, but modern.” Fenris is still early in development, and likely won’t be out until 2020 or later, so it’s safe to say that many decisions made by the team today will change over time. (We don’t know if it’s PC-first or planned for simultaneous launch on PC and consoles, and in fact, the team may have not yet made that decision.) One ongoing conversation, for example, has been whether to keep the isometric camera angle or use the over-the-shoulder third-person view that was prototyped for Hades. Recent builds of the game have been isometric, like previous Diablo games, according to three people familiar with Fenris, but questions remain over whether that should change. Another pillar of Fenris is to make Diablo more social, taking inspiration from Destiny to add what one current Blizzard developer called “light MMO elements,” further drawing on Blizzard’s past massively multiplayer online success. Previous Diablo games have featured hub cities full of computer-controlled quest-givers and vendors—imagine if, while exploring those hubs, you could meet and group up with other players? And then what if you could go off and take on instanced dungeons with them, sort of like Destiny’s strikes or World of Warcraft’s instances? “The question that kept getting asked is, ‘If there’s going to be a ‘strike’ equivalent, where you’re forced into a very story-focused, well-designed level of a dungeon, what does that look like in Diablo?” said one person familiar with the project. “What if we still had a core Diablo game that just happened to have a bunch of people on the map to do other cool stuff?” One lingering question is how Blizzard will monetize Fenris. Blizzard’s other big games, like Overwatch and Hearthstone, include ongoing revenue streams thanks to cosmetic microtransactions and card packs. With Diablo, Blizzard has not yet found a way to deliver that same sort of cash generator. (“The company’s always struggled as to how to have some sort of long-tail monetization for Diablo III,” acknowledged one former employee.) From what we’ve heard, those decisions are still up in the air on Fenris, and may not be clear for a long time. Fenris is still early—and all of these ideas may change or never make it to the final product—but with the fourth Diablo in active development, it’s hard not to wonder: Why wouldn’t Blizzard just talk about it? The company has hinted at the game’s existence, insisting in blog posts and on live streams that it has “multiple Diablo projects” in the works, but using the words “Diablo IV” might have quelled much of the outrage over Diablo Immortal. Earlier this month, I reported that Blizzard had made a video for BlizzCon in which co-founder Allen Adham talked about Diablo IV. Blizzard later disputed that the video had been made for BlizzCon. In conversations since then, two sources told me that regardless of the company’s statement, there had been plans throughout 2018 to announce the game this year. “In January, they were still full set on, ‘We’re going to do this right, we’re going to have a playable demo,’” said one. “By the time we’d hit May, that game wasn’t far enough along. It’s normal problems. Things going slower than they’d like.” By the summer, that person said, they were still under the impression that a tease was happening. “I think it’s semantics… If they changed their mind at any point, they can say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t scheduled.’ At least what we were told as a development team, it was supposed to get teased, that was always the intention.” On the flip side, a current developer in a non-Diablo department who was involved in BlizzCon planning told me that to their knowledge, there was no Diablo IV announcement ever planned for the show. Plans or no plans, the Diablo IV announcement didn’t happen. Here’s one theory as to why: Blizzard is haunted by the specter of Titan. Titan was the code-name for a brand new MMO that Blizzard started developing around 2007. Envisioned as a cross between The Sims, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2, where you’d run businesses during the day and turn into a superhero at night, Titan was meant to be a different twist on the genre that Blizzard had already mastered with World of Warcraft. (You can read more about Titan in our 2014 report on how it would have worked.) In the beginning of 2013, after a long and protracted development cycle, Blizzard canceled Titan. Part of the team went on to make Overwatch, which would become a big success, but the project became a black eye for Blizzard—a massive sink of time and money that was also, much to some people’s dismay, public knowledge. Not only had they wasted resources on this failed game—everybody knew about it. Blizzard had acknowledged the project in 2008, and its existence had been frequently hinted and asked about in the years that followed. So with Fenris fairly early in development—and with the fourth Diablo already having gone through one big reboot—it’s fair to wonder if the team was worried about another lengthy development cycle that might end in disaster. Even the words “Diablo IV” might have set expectations that the developers didn’t want to establish just yet. “The Diablo team is very paranoid about saying something too soon and then getting stuck in a loop,” said one former Blizzard developer. “They don’t want to show the game until they have a trailer, a demo.” “Obviously Titan looms over all of us,” said another former Blizzard developer. Despite Overwatch’s emergence from Titan’s ashes, the developer added, “people don’t look at Titan and see a success.“ “Our preference is to have a clear announcement plan with some concrete details and hopefully a playable demo of the game when we announce.” - Blizzard spokesperson “I think there’s a desire to announce stuff within a reasonably close proximity to when people are gonna get to play it,” said a current Blizzard developer, pointing to both Titan and Blizzard’s other infamously canceled project, StarCraft: Ghost. “[Those] just set people up for a lot of disappointment.” In a statement, Blizzard confirmed as much. “In terms of unannounced games, so much can change over the course of development based on how we’re feeling about the progress and direction of the project,” the company said. “So we try not to share details about unannounced projects before we’re ready. Our preference is to have a clear announcement plan with some concrete details and hopefully a playable demo of the game when we announce. That applies to our Diablo projects and our other games as well.” It’s also fair to wonder: Just how much has Titan affected Blizzard’s development process? Over the past few years we’ve seen Titan’s seven- to eight-year cycle, Diablo III (which entered development in the early 2000s but was not released until 2012), and StarCraft II (2003 to 2010). Some veteran Blizzard developers have spent over 10 years on a single project, which has driven some of them to crave smaller, shorter games. That’s one of the reasons Blizzard now operates a secretive new department—one that functions a little bit differently than its other divisions. In the days following BlizzCon 2018, as Diablo fans across the world raged about the announcement of Diablo Immortal and lack of news on Diablo IV, many of them wondered: Was Diablo Immortal’s development detracting from other Diablo games? As it turns out, Diablo IV and Diablo Immortal are developed by different teams of people in different divisions. While the project known as Fenris is in production at Team 3, Diablo Immortal is partially developed by NetEase and partially made by a small group of Blizzard employees who work for one of the company’s newest departments: incubation. In 2016, when Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham returned to the company, he announced that he was heading up that new department. Inspired by the massive success of the experimental card game Hearthstone (2014), this “incubation” department would help cultivate new creative projects for the company. It attracted some of Blizzard’s veteran developers, like Tom Chilton, who had been director of World of Warcraft for six years and a designer on the game for another six before that. (Now, Chilton is heading up a mobile game.) Another veteran designer who moved to incubation was Wyatt Cheng, who had worked on Diablo III for over a decade and wanted a break, according to two people who know him. Blizzard had partnered with a Chinese company called NetEase to publish Diablo III as a free-to-play game in China, where it was a big success. At some point in 2016 or 2017, the two companies decided to collaborate, putting together what would be called Diablo Immortal—a Diablo game, with Cheng as lead designer, made only for phones. “Essentially it exists because we’ve heard that China really wants it,” said a current developer. “It is really for China.” Three Blizzard sources told me that the original plan for Diablo Immortal had been to release it only in China at first for a few months or maybe a year, in large part to test it out among Chinese fans before releasing it in the west. “The quality bar in the Chinese market, especially for framerate, is extremely low,” said one. “You can release something that’d be considered alpha footage here and it’d be a finished game there.” Later, those sources said, Blizzard decided to take more time to polish the game and prepare it for a simultaneous global announcement and release. In a statement, Blizzard said that Diablo Immortal had been developed for both Western and Eastern markets but did not comment on whether the game was originally planned to launch in China first. “One of our core values is ‘think globally’ and our history has shown that we strive to make our games in as many languages as possible so more players can enjoy them,” a spokesperson said. “With that in mind, we quickly knew that we wanted to bring Diablo Immortal to the global audience.” Diablo Immortal isn’t the only mobile game in development at Blizzard’s incubation department, and although a skeptical fan might question the motivations behind these games, some current and former employees insist that these games are in development because Blizzard’s developers genuinely want to make them. “There are lots of mobile game players at Blizzard,” said a current developer. “There are lots of people actually excited about mobile games. The reaction inside the company to Immortal is very different than the reaction outside the company. Part of the thinking on a lot of these is, people want to work on smaller projects. Smaller projects in mobile tend to make sense.” For example, developers told me, quite a few people at Blizzard play Pokémon Go, the massively popular mobile game that lets you use your phone’s camera to catch wild creatures. As one developer explained, the iconic orc statue in the center of Blizzard’s campus is a Pokémon Gym, and staff wage war over who gets to control the landmark on a daily basis. (Correction - 5:58pm: We originally said that it was a Pokéstop, but it’s actually a Gym! Apologies for the error.) The natural extension of that was for one of Blizzard’s incubation teams to develop a Warcraft version of Pokémon Go, which is in development for smartphones now. Surely it occurred to the decision-makers at Blizzard that this Warcraft spinoff could be a massive revenue generator, but the game is also in production because lead designer Cory Stockton (formerly of World of Warcraft) is a huge fan of Pokémon. (People who have played the Warcraft mobile game say it’s also got a lot more to it than Pokémon Go, including single-player mechanics.) Perhaps it’s a win-win for Adham. With mobile games, Blizzard can please Activision’s investors by appealing to burgeoning video game markets in China and India, and Blizzard can also satisfy its veteran developers by letting them work on smaller projects that they really want to make. “The reality is, everything that is in incubation at Blizzard is in incubation because Allen Adham believed they were worthwhile,” said another current developer. These mobile games might not appeal to as many of Blizzard’s hardcore fans—those who prefer to play games mainly on PCs—but they have appealed very much to the developers. Yet over the past year, Activision’s influence on Blizzard has been very real—and Blizzard staff say things are starting to feel a little different for the once-autonomous company. In the spring of 2018, during Blizzard’s annual company-wide “Battle Plan” meeting, chief financial officer Amrita Ahuja spoke to all of the staff, according to two people who were there. In what came as a surprise to many, she told Blizzard that one of the company’s goals for the coming year was to save money. “This is the first year we’ve heard a priority being cutting costs and trying not to spend as much,” said one person who was in the meeting. “It was presented as, ‘Don’t spend money where it isn’t necessary.’” Ahuja was new to Blizzard, having started as CFO that spring as a transplant from 3100 Ocean Park, the Santa Monica-based Activision headquarters where she’d spent eight years working in the finance and investor relations departments. There was a perception among Blizzard staff that she had come in to clean up the spreadsheets, to save as much money as possible while at the same time bolstering Blizzard’s product output. (In a statement, Blizzard said, “We actively recruited [Ahuja] and we chose her out of a large, very competitive, and highly-qualified set of candidates.”) 2016’s Overwatch had been a smash hit, but in 2017 and 2018 the company shipped very little—there was a StarCraft remaster, a World of Warcraft expansion, and of course, patches and updates for other games. That was it. Traditionally, Blizzard has remained entirely separate from Activision, with its own quality standards and branding, to the point where they felt like two different companies. You might be able to find World of Warcraft Easter eggs in StarCraft II, but you’d never see an Overwatch character in Call of Duty. In recent years, however, that’s changed. Blizzard’s digital store, Battle.net, now features Activision games like Destiny 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Bungie appeared on the BlizzCon 2018 stream to announce that Destiny 2 would be temporarily free. And there’s been a perception among Blizzard developers that the two companies are growing more and more intertwined. As it turned out, 2018 would be a weak year for Activision. The publisher was unhappy with Destiny’s performance and would take a major stock hit in November following fiscal third-quarter results that disappointed investors. One worrying trend for the bean-counters was the stagnancy of Blizzard’s MAUs—monthly active users—which are seen as a pivotal metric for service games like Hearthstone and Overwatch. Throughout 2018, as Activision has told investors, those numbers have declined. Combined with Blizzard’s lack of new games, it’s easy to see why Activision’s executives may have wanted to intervene. “You would’ve thought Blizzard was going under and we had no money,” said a former Blizzard staffer, who told me they left the company this year in part because of Activision’s influence. “The way every little thing was being scrutinized from a spend perspective. That’s obviously not the case. But this was the very first time I ever heard, ‘We need to show growth.’ That was just so incredibly disheartening for me.” Blizzard appears to be bolstering headcount for its development teams—one current developer said their team was encouraged to get bigger—while cutting as many costs as possible elsewhere. It’s a process that may not be done yet, as Activision seems to still be looking to boost Blizzard’s content output and release more games on a regular schedule. Ahuja’s comments in the spring of 2018 may have simply been the beginning. “We are being told to spend less at every corner because we have no new IP,” said one former developer. “Because Overwatch set this bar of how much we could earn in a single year, there’s a ton of pressure from Activision to get shit moving. They want something to show shareholders.” (During an earnings call after Overwatch launched, Activision said it had brought in over a billion dollars in revenue.) Then, in October 2018, Blizzard lost its leader. Co-founder Mike Morhaime, the soft-spoken CEO who jovially addressed fans at every BlizzCon, said he was stepping down, to be replaced by veteran World of Warcraft producer J. Allen Brack. Allen Adham and chief development officer Ray Gresko also joined Blizzard’s executive management team, perhaps to help ensure that the studio would be helmed by game developers who lived and breathed Blizzard. It was a massive shake-up for Blizzard, and it came during a time when there were already questions about Activision’s influences. Morhaime was widely beloved at the company. One former Blizzard developer described him as the “anti-CEO.” ”He doesn’t care about profitability,” that person said. “He just wants employees to be happy, and he just wants to make good games and keep the community happy.” Suddenly, there were whispers in hallways, concerns about future cost-cutting initiatives and furtive exchanges about what plans Activision CEO Bobby Kotick might have in mind for Blizzard. “There’s a perception within Blizzard that finance is making more calls than they ever did in the past,” said one person who left Blizzard recently. “You never heard that three or four years ago.” Cultural shifts aren’t always blatant. Anyone who’s worked for a major corporation can attest to the invisible pressures that can emerge over time. “There’s a temptation to cast Activision as the villain,” said one current developer. “I think the influences are far more subtle than that.” Someone at Blizzard might make a decision with the best of intentions in mind, but if they subconsciously know that their corporate bosses at Activision want to cut costs and please investors, who knows how that might affect their judgement? With Activision and Blizzard growing less and less separate, what kind of overlaps will we see across their various divisions? These days, there’s trepidation surrounding Blizzard, both externally and internally. Strange decisions surrounding the Diablo franchise have exacerbated that, and in fact, some who work or have worked at Blizzard believe that canceling Diablo III’s second expansion was one of the company’s biggest mistakes in recent years. Recalled one Blizzard veteran: “I remember a lot of us looking at each other and saying, ‘Man, if we had just done that second expansion instead of losing half the team as a result of the cancellation, and then all of the personnel changes, management changes, then this walk down the road of Hades… If we hadn’t done any of that and had just focused on doing a solid third act for Diablo, it’d be out by now.’” There is a future for Diablo, one that isn’t solely limited to mobile games. Diablo III may have wound down, but Diablo 4 is still in the works, despite the culture of secrecy that has prevented Blizzard from mentioning it by name. There’s no way to know what may happen to the project in the future, but right now, it exists. The big question is, what will Blizzard look like in two years? In five? How will corporate expectations and tensions impact what has been one of the most beloved companies in video games for nearly three decades? We may not know the answers until BlizzCon 2028.
在2018年11月2日，暴雪宣布了移动端的暗黑破坏神游戏，在零零星星的掌声中结束了一年一度的BlizzCon。此次匪夷所思的营销决定立即引发了争议，暴雪的这个倍受喜爱的动作类型角色扮演IP的受众大声指责其忽视PC玩家。 也许暴雪的营销部门曾预计暗黑破坏神粉丝会对暗黑破坏神不朽感到兴奋，但这一消息在过去几年与暗黑破坏神有关的一系列奇怪决定中又是一个奇怪的举动。在暗黑破坏神III于2012年在个人电脑上发布灾难性事件之后，以及通过2014年扩张计划（Reaper of Souls）达到高潮的救赎之路，粉丝们预计会有长期支持，也许是第三次暗黑破坏神的第二次扩张。毕竟，它已售出超过3000万份。 但是自2014年以来，暗黑破坏神III的更新一直是轻松而零星的，四年之后，暴雪在粉丝渴望暗黑破坏神IV的任何消息时宣布了暗黑破坏神不朽，这引发了对特许经营未来的重大疑问。 暗黑破坏神真的发生了什么？暗黑破坏神III的长期计划发生了什么变化？暗黑破坏神不朽是由中国公司网易在暴雪之外开发的，是暴雪降低标准还是放弃核心观众的标志？是否有正在开发的暗黑破坏神IV，或暴雪放弃PC游戏而转向手机？ 为了回答这些问题，我和11名现任和前任暴雪员工进行了交谈，所有员工都匿名发言，因为他们无权向媒体发表讲话。他们告诉我暗黑破坏神III的第二次扩张，以及暗黑破坏神IV，它确实在开发中，但在2016年重新启动。他们已经谈到了该系列在中国的受欢迎程度，这是其中一个主要原因。暗黑破坏神不朽的存在，以及被取消的游戏泰坦的幽灵如何笼罩在暴雪的许多决定上。 其中一些人也对Activision对这家心爱的视频游戏公司的影响提出了质疑。 Activision与出版商Vivendi（当时是暴雪的控股公司）合并，于2008年成为Activision Blizzard，但在过去的十年中，暴雪为自己留下一个独立的实体感到自豪。凭借自己的管理结构和位于加利福尼亚州欧文市的校园，暴雪一直在Activision的其他部门和子公司中脱颖而出。 （Activision总部位于圣莫尼卡西北部约一小时。）而不是坚持严格的生产周期，导致比如Activision的年度使命召唤游戏，暴雪传统上给予开发人员尽可能多的时间。这是该公司因制作世界上最棒的游戏而闻名的原因之一。 然而，今年暴雪员工表示，正在进行的最大谈话之一就是削减成本。对于粉丝，甚至对于在暴雪工作或曾经工作过的一些人来说，人们担心公司文化中的某些内容可能会发生变化。 当得到评论时，暴雪发送了一封电子邮件声明，归功于公司发言人，我将在整篇文章中引用。该公司表示，“暴雪一直并将继续成为一家由开发商驱动的公司。” “我们创造的所有游戏都代表着我们的游戏开发者自己所热衷的想法。对于暗黑破坏神不朽来说，这与魔兽：兽人与人类，或者守望先锋，或者我们曾经制作过的任何游戏都是如此。我们相信最好的游戏是我们的开发者所信奉的游戏。“ 在2013年底或者也就是2014年初，在Reaper of Souls发布之前不久，暴雪发布内部声明震惊了开发团队：暗黑破坏神III的第二次扩张被取消了。负责暗黑破坏神的暴雪部门第3组在第二次扩建时没有完成大量工作 - 他们主要关注收割者 - 但它计划作为他们的下一个项目。现在它没有发生。 “他们告诉团队的是，'你已经完成了灵魂收割者，这真的很棒。但我们认为知识产权最好的事情就是以任何形式转移到暗黑破坏神IV，“一位在那里的人说。 “至少在我的印象中，团队的总体感觉是，高管们对此表示不信任投票。他们认为暗黑破坏神III是一个巨大的混蛋。“ 暗黑破坏神III真的是一个巨大的搞砸了吗？当然，备受期待的动作RPG已经在2012年5月推出了直接的灾难，因为世界各地的粉丝试图打开游戏并发现自己无法玩，这要归功于可怕的“错误37”，一个警告变成了模因每次游戏无法访问时弹出。还有其他一些问题，比如残酷的难度飙升和真钱拍卖行，它允许玩家以现金买卖战利品，扭曲了暗黑破坏神III的物品平衡。 在整个2012年和2013年，暴雪的第3小组解决了许多这些问题，彻底改造了难度系统并取消了拍卖行。暗黑破坏神III发展成为一款深受喜爱的游戏，并于2014年3月推出了Reaper of Souls，该团队将其变成了备受好评的动作RPG之一。那么，为什么暴雪会取消第二个呢？ “很多人都对此感到震惊，”那位在场的人说。 “我认为他们中很多人都觉得'我们在暗黑破坏神III上犯了错误，但我们学会了，我们制作了收割者来展示我们能做些什么。我们已经解决了这个问题，收割者真的很好。“我想很多人都觉得我们已经弄明白了，我们知道如何做到这一点，扩展二，不管它会怎样，都会是最高的表达的意思......让他们在没有真正看到收割者如何真正刺痛的情况下拔掉插头。“ 现在还不清楚为什么暴雪不想支持一个如此商业化成功的游戏，但是第3组的理论是，暴雪的管理层已经对暗黑破坏神III失去信心，并认为它是失败的，甚至在Reaper发布之前。 “整体感觉是管理层认为，'这支球队真的搞砸了'，”一位在场的人说道。 “他们可能会持续几个月，看看收割者如何做，但在他们看来[暗黑破坏神III]是无法挽回的。”（当Reaper于2014年3月下旬在PC上推出时，暴雪表示它首次销售270万份本周 - 这是一个很大的数字，但只有暗黑破坏神III在PC和游戏机上销售的约1500万份的一小部分。） 当被问到时，暴雪没有解决这一扩张的取消，但作为更广泛声明的一部分，谈到了一般的取消。 “就游戏取消而言，我们认为这是一种力量 - 反映了我们对质量的承诺，以及我们如何始终如一地运作，”发言人说。 “从历史上看，我们在过去三十年中已经开展了大约50％的项目 - 我们认为这些项目代表了暴雪的质量。不运送游戏绝不是一个容易做出的决定，但它始终是我们的正确决定。取消泰坦导致我们进入守望，另一个例子，取消游牧民带领我们进入魔兽世界。“ 2014年3月，当球迷们用胜利的灵魂收割者庆祝暗黑破坏神III的回归时，第3队正在分裂。一些开发商离开了公司;其他人则转向不同的项目，如“魔兽世界”或新生的守望者。一些人坚持使用暗黑破坏神III的补丁，但第3组已经不再全面展开。 “他们拥有史上最强大的暗黑破坏神开发团队，他们将他们全部分散到风中，”一位从事灵魂收割者的人说道。对于那些开发者来说，这是暴雪管理层的一个令人困惑的举动。这位知情人士说，让团队有更多的时间来看看Reaper如何表现以及第二次扩张如何形成“将更像暴雪一样”。 那些留在第3队的人开始谈论暗黑破坏神IV的样子。乔希·莫斯基拉（Josh Mosqueira）是加拿大移植者，他曾在暗黑破坏神III控制台团队开始担任特许经营权之前担任灵魂收割者的主管，他将领导代号为哈迪斯的新项目的开发。目标是让球队走向一个非常不同的方向。 据熟悉该项目的三位知情人士透露，清真寺和团队将哈迪斯设计成暗黑之魂。这将是一个哥特式，具有挑战性的地下城爬虫。它不是保持前三个暗黑破坏神游戏的等距摄像机角度，而是使用一种过于肩负的第三人称视角。这与以前的比赛有所不同，暴雪的一些人认为他们甚至可能不会称之为“暗黑破坏神IV”。从2014年到2016年，它是Team 3的主要项目，与暗黑破坏神III的一些补丁和轻量级内容更新一起开发。然后，就像暗黑破坏神III的第二次扩张一样，哈迪斯被取消了。 与任何取消一样，这一举动可能有很多原因，但与哈迪斯有关的两个人表示，它正在经历艰难的发展。 “它根本没有形成，”一个人说。 2016年中，Mosqueira离开了暴雪。目前尚不清楚是否由于哈迪斯的取消而哈谢拉斯离开，或者哈迪斯因为他离开而被取消了，但可以肯定的是，在那一刻，该项目被搁置了。 （当Kotaku到达时，Mosqueira拒绝评论这个故事。） 在接下来的几个月里，暴雪的Team 3会做两件事。开发人员现在需要一些工作，现在哈迪斯已经不在了，他们为暗黑破坏神III提供了可下载的内容，称为死灵法师的崛起，这是一个角色类附加组件，团队希望能够满足那些渴望更多暗黑破坏神的粉丝。其中一些人开始研究代号为Fenris的项目。 我们所有消息来源都证实，芬里斯目前是暗黑破坏神IV的化身。自2016年以来，暴雪的Team 3一直在研究这个版本的游戏，一些看过它的人说他们对这个方向持乐观态度。 “[设计总监] Luis [Barriga]对这款游戏有着非常强烈的愿景，”一名前员工表示，“很多人都对暴雪感到兴奋。” “他们想让”暗黑破坏神IV“变得粗暴，让它变暗，[摆脱]暗黑破坏神III中任何被认为是卡通的东西。” 这一愿景的一个关键部分是艺术方向。在游戏开发过程中，许多工作室使用他们称之为“支柱”的语言来帮助定义游戏的目标，以便团队中的每个人都在同一页面上。对芬里斯来说，其中一个支柱很简单：拥抱黑暗。 “有很多人觉得暗黑破坏神III在艺术风格和法术效果方面摆脱了暗黑破坏神暗黑破坏神的作用，”现任暴雪的一名员工表示，并补充说Fenris的目标更像是心爱的暗黑破坏神II。另一个说：“他们想让这个变得粗暴，让它变暗，[摆脱]在”暗黑破坏神III“中被认为是卡通的任何东西......制造人们在暗黑破坏神II中所害怕的东西，但却是现代的。 Fenris仍处于早期开发阶段，可能不会在2020年或之后出现，因此可以肯定地说，团队今天做出的许多决定都会随着时间而改变。 （我们不知道它是PC首先还是计划在PC和游戏机上同时启动，事实上，团队可能还没有做出这个决定。）例如，一个持续的对话是，是否保持等距相机角度或使用为哈迪斯原型的第三人称视角。根据熟悉Fenris的三位知情人士的说法，游戏的最新版本与以前的暗黑破坏神游戏一样是等距的，但是问题是否应该改变仍存在疑问。 Fenris的另一个支柱是让暗黑破坏神更具社交性，从Destiny中汲取灵感，增加目前暴雪开发商所谓的“轻型MMO元素”，进一步借鉴暴雪过去的大型多人在线成功。之前的暗黑破坏神游戏的特色是拥有计算机控制的任务提供者和供应商的中心城市 - 想象一下，如果在探索这些中心的同时，您可以与其他玩家见面并进行分组？然后，如果你可以和他们一起去实例化地牢，有点像Destiny的罢工或魔兽世界的实例呢？ “不断被问到的问题是，'如果有一个'罢工'等同于你，你被迫进入一个非常专注于故事，精心设计的地下城水平，暗黑破坏神的样子是什么样的？”一位熟悉该项目的人士说。 “如果我们还有一个核心的暗黑破坏神游戏，恰好有一群人在地图上做其他很酷的东西怎么办？” 一个挥之不去的问题是暴雪将如何通过Fenris货币化。暴雪的其他大型游戏，如Overwatch和Hearthstone，由于化妆品微交易和卡片包装，包括持续的收入来源。有了暗黑破坏神，暴雪还没有找到一种方法来提供同样的现金生成器。 （“该公司一直在为如何为暗黑破坏神III进行某种长尾货币化而苦苦挣扎，”一名前雇员承认。）从我们所听到的情况看，这些决定仍然在Fenris上播出，可能不会很清楚。 Fenris还处于早期状态 - 所有这些想法都可能改变或者永远不会成为最终产品 - 但是第四个暗黑破坏神正在积极开发中，很难不怀疑：为什么暴雪不会谈论它？该公司暗示了该游戏的存在，坚持在博客文章和现场直播中，它已经有“多个暗黑破坏神项目”，但使用“暗黑破坏神IV”这个词可能已经平息了暗黑破坏神不朽的大部分愤怒。 本月早些时候，我报道暴雪为BlizzCon制作了一个视频，其中联合创始人艾伦·阿德姆谈到了暗黑破坏神IV。暴雪后来争辩说该视频是为BlizzCon制作的。在那之后的谈话中，两位消息人士告诉我，无论公司的声明如何，整个2018年都有计划宣布今年的比赛。 “在1月份，他们仍然全力以赴，'我们将做到这一点，我们将会有一个可玩的演示，'”一个人说。 “当我们打到五月的时候，那场比赛还远远不够。这是正常的问题。事情变得比他们想要的慢。“到了夏天，那个人说，他们仍然觉得戏弄正在发生。 “我认为这是语义......如果他们在任何时候都改变主意，他们可以说，'哦，它没有被安排。'至少我们被告知作为一个开发团队，它应该被戏弄，这总是意向。” 另一方面，参与BlizzCon计划的非暗黑破坏神部门的当前开发人员告诉我，据他们所知，该节目没有计划暗黑破坏神IV。 计划或没有计划，暗黑破坏神IV的公告没有发生。以下是关于原因的一个理论：暴雪被泰坦的幽灵所困扰。 Titan是暴雪于2007年开始开发的全新MMO的代号。设想为The Sims，Left 4 Dead和Team Fortress 2之间的交叉，在那里你可以在白天经营企业并成为超级英雄晚上，Titan本来就是暴雪已经掌握了魔兽世界的流派的另一种扭曲。 （您可以在我们的2014年报告中了解有关Titan如何运作的更多信息。） 在2013年初，经过漫长而漫长的开发周期，暴雪取消了泰坦。团队的一部分继续制作Overwatch，这将成为一个巨大的成功，但该项目成为暴雪的黑眼圈 - 一个巨大的时间和金钱汇集，这也是一些人的沮丧，公众知识。他们不仅在这场失败的比赛中浪费了资源 - 每个人都知道这一点。暴雪在2008年承认了这个项目，并且在接下来的几年里，它的存在经常被暗示和询问。 所以Fenris在开发的早期阶段就已经开始 - 并且第四个暗黑破坏神已经经历了一次大的重启 - 公平地想知道该团队是否担心可能以灾难结束的另一个漫长的开发周期。甚至“暗黑破坏神IV”这两个词也可能设定了开发人员不想建立的期望。一位前暴雪开发者说：“暗黑破坏神团队非常偏执于过早说话，然后陷入困境。” “他们不想在有预告片，演示之前展示游戏。” “显然Titan笼罩着我们所有人，”另一位前暴雪开发者说道。尽管Overwatch从泰坦的骨灰中崛起，但开发人员补充道，“人们不会看泰坦并看到成功。” “我们倾向于制定一个明确的公告计划，其中包含一些具体的细节，并希望在我们宣布时能够进行游戏的可玩性演示。” - 暴雪发言人 “我认为有人希望在人们要玩它的时候，在一个相当接近的地方宣布这些东西，”现任暴雪开发商说，他指的是Titan和暴雪的另一个臭名昭着的取消项目，星际争霸：幽灵。 “[那些]只是让人们感到非常失望。” 暴雪在一份声明中证实了这一点。 “就未公布的游戏而言，基于我们对项目进展和方向的感受，可以在开发过程中改变这么多，”该公司表示。 “因此，在我们准备好之前，我们尽量不分享有关未宣布项目的详细信息。我们倾向于制定一个明确的公告计划，其中包含一些具体的细节，并希望在我们宣布时可玩的游戏演示。这适用于我们的暗黑破坏神项目和我们的其他游戏。“ 同样值得怀疑的是：Titan对暴雪的开发过程有多大影响？在过去的几年中，我们看到了泰坦的七到八年周期，暗黑破坏神III（在21世纪初进入开发但直到2012年才发布），以及星际争霸II（2003年至2010年）。一些资深的暴雪开发者已经花费了超过10年的时间在一个项目上，这促使他们中的一些人渴望更小，更短的游戏。这就是暴雪现在运营一个秘密的新部门的原因之一 - 这个部门的功能与其他部门略有不同。 在BlizzCon 2018之后的日子里，随着世界各地的暗黑破坏神球迷对暗黑破坏神不朽的宣布以及暗黑破坏神IV缺乏新闻的狂热，他们中的许多人都想知道：暗黑破坏神不朽的发展是否会影响其他暗黑破坏神游戏？ 事实证明，暗黑破坏神IV和暗黑破坏神不朽是由不同部门的不同团队开发的。虽然被称为Fenris的项目正在Team 3中投入使用，但Diablo Immortal部分由网易开发，部分由一小群暴雪员工制作，他们为公司最新部门之一工作：孵化。 2016年，当暴雪联合创始人艾伦·阿德姆回到公司时，他宣布他正在领导这个新部门。受实验性纸牌游戏Hearthstone（2014）的巨大成功启发，这个“孵化”部门将有助于为公司培养新的创意项目。它吸引了一些暴雪的资深开发人员，比如Tom Chilton，他曾担任过魔兽世界六年的导演，并在此之前担任另外六位游戏的设计师。 （现在，奇尔顿正在开发一款手机游戏。） 据两位了解他的人说，另一位经过孵化的资深设计师是Wyatt Cheng，他曾在暗黑破坏神III工作了十多年并希望休息。暴雪与一家名为网易的中国公司合作，将暗黑破坏神III作为一款免费游戏在中国发布，并取得了巨大的成功。在2016年或2017年的某个时刻，两家公司决定合作，将所谓的暗黑破坏神 - 一个暗黑破坏神游戏，以及Cheng作为首席设计师，仅针对手机制作。 “基本上存在是因为我们听说中国真的想要它，”一位现任开发商表示。 “这真的是针对中国的。” 暴雪的三位消息人士告诉我，“暗黑破坏神不朽”的最初计划是最初只在中国发布几个月或者一年，这在很大程度上是为了在中国粉丝在西方发布之前对其进行测试。 “中国市场的质量标准，特别是帧率，非常低，”一位说。 “你可以在这里发布一些被认为是阿尔法镜头的东西，并且它将成为那里的完成游戏。”后来，这些消息来源说，暴雪决定花更多的时间来完善游戏，并准备同时进行全球宣布和发布。 在一份声明中，暴雪表示暗黑破坏神不朽是为西方和东方市场开发的，但没有评论该游戏原本是否计划首先在中国推出。 “我们的核心价值之一是'全球思考'，我们的历史表明我们努力用尽可能多的语言制作游戏，让更多的玩家可以享受它们，”一位发言人说。 “考虑到这一点，我们很快就知道我们想把暗黑破坏神不朽带给全球观众。” Diablo Immortal并不是暴雪孵化部门唯一开发的手机游戏，虽然一个持怀疑态度的粉丝可能质疑这些游戏背后的动机，但一些现任和前任员工坚持认为这些游戏正在开发中，因为暴雪的开发者真正想要制作它们。 “暴雪有很多手机游戏玩家，”现任开发商表示。 “有很多人对手机游戏感到兴奋。公司内部对Immortal的反应与公司外部的反应截然不同。关于其中很多方面的部分思考是，人们希望在较小的项目上工作。移动领域的小型项目往往有意义。“ 例如，开发人员告诉我，很多人在暴雪玩PokémonGo，这是一款非常受欢迎的手机游戏，可以让你用手机的相机来捕捉野生生物。正如一位开发商所解释的那样，暴雪校园中心的标志性兽人雕像是一个神奇宝贝健身房，工作人员每天都会控制谁来控制地标。 （更正 - 下午5:58：我们原来说这是一个Pokéstop，但它实际上是一个健身房！为错误道歉。） 这种情况的自然延伸是暴雪的一个孵化团队开发魔兽世界版的神奇宝贝Go，现在正在为智能手机开发。当然暴雪决策者认为这个魔兽分拆可能是一个巨大的收入来源，但该游戏也在制作中，因为首席设计师科里斯托克顿（以前的魔兽世界）是神奇宝贝的忠实粉丝。 （玩过“魔兽争霸”手机游戏的玩家表示，与PokémonGo相比，它还有更多功能，包括单人游戏机制。） 也许这对阿德姆来说是双赢的。通过手机游戏，暴雪可以通过吸引中国和印度新兴的视频游戏市场来取悦Activision的投资者，而暴雪也可以通过让他们在他们真正想做的小型项目上工作来满足其资深开发者的需求。 “现实情况是，暴雪孵化的一切都在孵化，因为艾伦·阿德姆认为他们是值得的，”另一位现任开发商表示。这些手机游戏可能不会吸引暴雪的铁杆粉丝 - 那些喜欢主要在PC上玩游戏的人 - 但他们对开发者非常有吸引力。 然而在过去一年中，Activision对暴雪的影响非常真实 - 暴雪的工作人员表示，曾经自治的公司的情况开始有所不同。 据两位在场的人士称，在2018年春季，在暴雪年度全公司“战斗计划”会议期间，首席财务官Amrita Ahuja与所有员工进行了交谈。令许多人感到意外的是，她告诉暴雪，公司明年的目标之一是省钱。 “这是我们第一年听到的优先事项是削减成本，并尽量不花费那么多，”一位参加会议的人士表示。 “它被呈现为'不要在没有必要的地方花钱。'” Ahuja是暴雪的新手，刚开始担任首席财务官，从位于圣塔莫尼卡的Activision总部3100海洋公园搬迁，她在金融和投资者关系部门工作了8年。暴雪工作人员认为，她已经进入清理电子表格，以节省尽可能多的钱，同时支持暴雪的产品输出。 （在一份声明中，暴雪说，“我们积极招募[Ahuja]，我们选择了一个大型，极具竞争力，高素质的候选人。”）2016年的守望派一直是一个红极一时，但在2017年和2018年该公司发货很少 - 有一个星际争霸重新制作，魔兽世界扩张，当然还有其他游戏的补丁和更新。就是这样。 传统上，暴雪与Activision完全分开，凭借自己的质量标准和品牌，他们感觉就像是两家不同的公司。您可以在星际争霸II中找到魔兽世界的复活节彩蛋，但在“使命召唤”中你永远不会看到一个守望派人物。然而，近年来，情况发生了变化。暴雪的数字商店Battle.net现在推出了像Destiny 2和Call of Duty：Black Ops 4这样的Activision游戏.Bungie出现在BlizzCon 2018流上，宣布Destiny 2暂时免费。暴雪开发商一直认为两家公司的合作越来越紧密。 事实证明，2018年对于Activision来说将是一个疲软的一年。该出版商对Destiny的表现感到不满，并且在第三季度业绩令投资者失望之后，该公司将在11月份遭受重大打击。豆类计数器的一个令人担忧的趋势是暴雪的MAU每月活跃用户停滞不前 - 这被视为Hearthstone和Overwatch等服务游戏的关键指标。整个2018年，正如Activision告诉投资者的那样，这些数字已经下降。结合暴雪缺乏新游戏，很容易理解为什么Activision的高管可能想要干预。 “你会认为暴雪正在破产，我们没有钱，”一位前暴雪的职员说，他告诉我他们今年离开公司的部分原因是因为Activision的影响力。 “从花费的角度审视每件小事的方式。显然情况并非如此。但这是我第一次听到，'我们需要表现出增长。'这对我来说真是令人难以置信的沮丧。“ 暴雪似乎正在支持其开发团队的人数 - 一位当前的开发人员表示他们的团队被鼓励变得更大 - 同时在其他地方削减尽可能多的成本。这是一个可能尚未完成的过程，因为Activision似乎仍在寻求提升暴雪的内容输出并定期发布更多游戏。 Ahuja在2018年春季的评论可能只是一个开始。 “我们被告知要在每个角落少花钱，因为我们没有新的IP，”一位前开发商说。 “因为Overwatch设定了这一年我们可以在一年内赚取多少钱的标准，所以Activision的压力很大。他们想向股东展示一些东西。“（在Overwatch推出后的盈利电话会议期间，Activision表示它带来了超过10亿美元的收入。） 然后，在2018年10月，暴雪失去了领导者。联合创始人迈克·莫海姆（Mike Morhaime）是一位温和的首席执行官，他在每一个BlizzCon上都对粉丝说道，他说他正在辞职，被资深的魔兽世界制作人J. Allen Brack所取代。 Allen Adham和首席开发官Ray Gresko也加入了暴雪的执行管理团队，也许是为了确保工作室能够由暴雪生活和呼吸的游戏开发者掌舵。 对于暴雪而言，这是一场大规模的改组，而且在已经有关于Activision的影响的问题出现的时候。 Morhaime深受广大公司的喜爱。一位前暴雪开发商称他为“反首席执行官”。 “他不关心盈利能力，”该人士表示。 “他只是希望员工快乐，他只想做好游戏，让社区感到高兴。” 突然间，走廊里传来一些窃窃私语，对未来降低成本的举措感到担忧，以及关于Activision首席执行官Bobby Kotick对暴雪可能会有什么计划的偷偷摸摸的交流。 “暴雪内部有一种观点认为，金融业的筹码比以往任何时候都多，”一位最近离开暴雪的人说道。 “你三四年前从未听说过。” 文化转变并不总是明显的。任何为大公司工作的人都可以证明随着时间的推移可能出现的无形压力。 “有一种诱惑让Activision成为恶棍，”一位当前的开发者说。 “我认为这些影响比这更微妙。”暴雪的某个人可能会以最好的意图做出决定，但如果他们下意识地知道他们在Activision的公司老板想要削减成本并且请投资者，谁知道如何那可能影响他们的判断？随着Activision和Blizzard的分离越来越少，我们会在各个部门看到什么样的重叠？ 这些天，暴雪围绕着外部和内部都在惶恐不安。关于暗黑破坏神系列的奇怪决定加剧了这一点，事实上，一些在暴雪工作或曾在暴雪工作的人认为取消暗黑破坏神III的第二次扩张是该公司近年来最大的失误之一。回忆一位暴雪老手：“我记得我们很多人互相看着对方说，'如果我们刚刚完成第二次扩张而不是因为取消而失去一半的团队，那么所有的人事变动管理层发生了变化，然后沿着哈迪斯的道路行走......如果我们没有做过任何这样的事情而且只专注于为暗黑破坏神做一个可靠的第三幕，那么它现在已经出局了。“ 暗黑破坏神的未来，不仅限于手机游戏。暗黑破坏神III可能已经结束，但暗黑破坏神4仍然在进行中，尽管保密文化阻止了暴雪提名它。没有办法知道未来该项目可能会发生什么，但现在，它存在。最大的问题是，暴雪在两年内会是什么样子？五点？近三十年来，企业的期望和紧张局势将如何影响最受欢迎的电子游戏公司之一？在BlizzCon 2028之前我们可能不知道答案。
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