Diablo 4’s next expansion won’t release until 2026, and we’re all breathing a sigh of relief

Diablo 4 made some big promises to players on launch, saying the game would have four seasons a year that would add new story, plus an annual expansion. The reality has been a relentless pace of content, with seasons that include less than an hour of story content and require you to level a new character from scratch to experience it, with an ever-evolving slate of gameplay systems. The first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, launched on October 7 with a new zone, new class, more end-game activities, and the game’s first true narrative advancement… but even that felt a little half baked, with a couple of narrative lines that resolved themselves very quickly — with a super easy, barely an inconvenience feel — and a story that cut off right when things were getting interesting.

It feels like a game that could use a little more development time. And it sounds like the next expansion will be getting that extra time: Jason Schreier reported at D.I.C.E. Summit 2025 that Rod Fergusson announced Diablo 4’s next expansion will launch in 2026. That pushes it back from the late 2025 release date we would expect if D4 were to keep up its expansion-a-year pace. The news seems to have been a side-note in a longer presentation about building Diablo 4 into a live service game, which is not available online — but D.I.C.E. does post some of its panels on YouTube, so we may be able to see it at some point.

As a game, Diablo 4 is a lot of fun, but it’s taken time to get there. Over the past year and a half D4 has evolved into an approachable ARPG with plenty of end-game activities for advancement (something very much lacking on launch). But the game’s ongoing narrative hasn’t lived up to the stellar storytelling of the initial game. I hope that giving the next expansion some extra time will give the developers more time to polish the game and, perhaps, tell a story that doesn’t feel rushed.

And frankly slowing things down isn’t bad news for players (cliffhanger ending of Vessel of Hatred excepted). Diablo 4 demands a lot of time from its playerbase, and there are only so many hours in the day… and only so many dollars in the wallet for a game with quarterly $10+ battle pass, an annual $40+ expansion, and a deluge of $25 cosmetic armor sets.

I look forward to seeing what the Diablo 4 team comes up with when the next expansion arrives in 2026.