Blizzard is known for letting its games cook in the oven a little longer than most other game developers. Well over a decade went by between the releases of Diablo II and Diablo III, but not every game the studio works on sees the light of day. In fact, about half of them are canceled outright.
Speaking to Game Informer at BlizzCon, Blizzard executive producer Allen Adham shared that the studio has “roughly a 50-percent success rate” when it comes to its projects.
However, just because a game gets canceled doesn’t mean its development was a complete waste of time. Adham pointed to the MMO Titan, which eventually had some of its elements inserted into Overwatch. Several characters had their origins in the game, including Hanzo, Genji, Reinhardt, Symmetra, Torbjörn, Soldier 76, Bastion, and Reaper. It would have likely been a very different game, with director Jeff Kaplan saying that before weapons were implemented, for instance, Tracer shot lasers from her eyes.
Hopefully, none of the projects Blizzard is working on at the moment get canceled. We know the studio will release Diablo: Immortal, a mobile spinoff of the action-RPG series, and it has been all but confirmed that a full-fledged fourth Diablo game is also in the works. We’ve heard reports that an announcement could have even possibly been planned for BlizzCon earlier this month, though Blizzard denied that any such plans were ever in the works.
Blizzard’s latest full release was Diablo III: The Eternal Collection for Nintendo Switch, which bundles the base game with the Reaper of Souls expansion and all other previously released DLC. It’s the first Blizzard game to come to a Nintendo platform in a decade, with the studio primarily sticking to PC, mobile, and other consoles during that time.
For Overwatch fans using the public test region on PC, you can also try out new hero Ashe right now. A rival to McCree, the outlaw makes use of a lever-action rifle, dynamite, and a robotic companion called B.O.B. who can cause devastation to the other team and has never said that the Earth was flat — at least we don’t think he has.
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