Game publication Kotaku stirred the hornet’s nest of entitled gamers on Monday when it published a story citing unnamed sources saying that Blizzard intended to show a Diablo 4 sneak peek at the BlizzCon event last weekend and then pulled the announcement at the last minute.
Gamers who expected the showing were shocked at the possibility that the game might not be ready yet, and they gave Blizzard an earful on social media. They also slammed the company for showing a mobile game, rather than something juicy for real gamers, or PC players.
Blizzard issued this response on Monday evening:
“First off we want to mention that we definitely hear our community. We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements. We do continue to have different teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects, and we look forward to announcing when the time is right.”
It’s a polite response to what seems to be a manufactured problem. Fans were offended that Blizzard showed mobile version of Diablo, Diablo: Immortal, rather than a hardcore PC game, rumored to be called Diablo 4.
The fans wrongly assumed that Diablo: Immortal was being made in lieu of a much more extensive Diablo PC game. It’s clear from Blizzard’s response that is not the case.