What would it take for you to start playing Diablo 4 again?

There’s no denying it, Diablo 4 had a rough start. According to some reports, since its launch in June 2023, the game has lost reportedly 99.4% of its active player base; many returning to Diablo 3, some heading off to Path of Exile, Baldur’s Gate 3, or other games. While it’s expected that there will be some drop of players post launch, for a game that was so long in development, had so much time and money behind it and was so hotly anticipated, this degree of player loss was unexpected. I feel desperately for the developers who spent years of their lives on it only to see this reaction.

There have been hours anchors of videos on YouTube analyzing possible causes, and like any game with so many eyes on it, the opinions are many and varied. The core complaints seem to be itemization and inventory management, class and build balance and the dependence on late game drops to be able to play a given build to it’s full potential, the lack of a meaningful mid game, and lack of an engaging levelling experience to the level cap.

Blizzard has committed to addressing core issues in a prioritized manner. We’ve seen changes in how gems are managed clearing up substantial inventory space. The Season 2 patch added new ways to target farm key uniques and uber uniques that can be build defining. Soon we should hear more information about the theme for Season 3 and probably information on what player issues Blizzard hopes to address this season: on January 18, a developer fireside chat talking about Season 3 and other upcoming game changes.

The team is certainly working hard to address the issues being raised by the community, and as someone who works in a software development and delivery role I can understand that it’s more complicated than most people realize delivering changes into a live service environment. The question is: is it all too late? If they build it, will people come back?

What features would you need to see before you would consider playing again? Are you likely to come back for the next season or new expansion? Have you moved on for good now?