In a realm cloaked by shadows, eerie echoes, and echoes of gargantuan beasts that thirst for blood, the gaming community has been the real battlefield for Blizzard Entertainment. In recent days, they’ve experienced a metaphorical “boss fight” with their community regarding the inaugural season of Diablo 4, their latest installment in the award-winning dungeon-crawler franchise.
As soon as July opened, the Diablo 4 community expressed a torrent of criticism towards the pre-Season 1 update and the actual debut of the seasonal content as well. The patch brought numerous unwanted modifications to the game, including a comprehensive nerfing of all character classes. Some welcomed these adjustments considering a few Diablo 4 builds were wreaking havoc with their divine damage potential, but the bulk of the changes were met with dissatisfaction. Because of this, Blizzard found themselves arranging an emergency “Campfire Chat” to discuss this contentious update’s aftermath, as it vowed to prevent such extensive patches in the future, which was followed by another and will likely be followed by more in the coming weeks.
Now, to help them forge a new direction for Diablo 4, Blizzard has put up a listing on their official careers page for the Lead Season Designer – a posting that’s no longer available but was captured by Game Rant before it was taken down.
Perhaps to no one’s surprise, the timing for this hiring comes following the weeks-long backlash faced by developers – their shortcomings becoming fodder for discussions all over the internet.
According to the listing, the successful candidate will need at least five years of game design experience, including two in a leadership position. They’ll also have the flexibility to work from Blizzard’s offices in New York, Texas, or California. It’s a nice gig if a brutal one.
On the one hand, critics and audiences alike were quick to throw praise at Diablo 4 following its best-selling launch. In the weeks that followed, Diablo 4 has fielded nothing but complaints, from its cosmetics to its microtransactions, its battle pass, and content, or the lack thereof. Blizzard might as well have put “ability to eat toxic comments for breakfast” as a requirement for the job.
In any case, while the role implies a significant responsibility for the future of Diablo 4, it remains unclear if this position was recently vacated or entirely new.
If it’s the former, then we’re hoping whoever got booted can find a new job soon after presumably taking the blame for the lackluster debut season of Diablo 4. If it’s the latter, then Blizzard might really be in deep trouble and the earlier reports of crunch during the game’s development were probably accurate.
As the storm around the Season 1 update begins to settle, Blizzard aims to chart a fresh course and further reinforce their Diablo 4 team with additional roles, including a Lead Dungeon Designer, Senior Level Designer, and an Activities Designer.
These intentions by Blizzard offer respite for the tired and weary community, but a crucial question still remains: when will Diablo 4 players begin to experience the fruits of these changes? The realistic argument is we might only see improvements around Season 4 or 5, due to the typically lengthy development times and the time needed to integrate new team members.
The worst-case scenario is the new hires don’t pan out, leaving Diablo 4 in a worse situation. With Path of Exile 2 likely out by then, the outcry can only grow louder.
The good news is that Blizzard has done this in the past. Diablo III wasn’t good until roughly two years into its launch. The company’s recent history suggests that Diablo 4 will get better in time and we might just have to resign to that fate. It’s not the best way of looking at things but it’s the reality.
The truth is the path ahead for Diablo 4 is as fraught with danger as Mephito’s plan to revive himself and, presumably, his brothers, with the help of a now-corrupted Nyrelle. Blizzard’s commitment to making crucial hires and rectifying the past indicates its intent to provide a more satisfying gaming experience in the forthcoming seasons. It’s just a shame that it had to fumble the ball first to realize that maybe it should’ve just delayed Diablo 4.
In the end, one can only hope that as the new Lead Season Designer carves a path through this storm, they can forge it into the game that both the community and Blizzard envision.
