By
Chimamanda U. Martha
February 13th, 2024
Blizzard’s new Diablo 4 game was expected to be announced at November’s BlizzCon 2019 but an ad for a related artbook seems to announce it earlier.
In November last year, Blizzard Entertainment announced the Diablo Immortal, the fourth installment in the Diablo game series. The release was however met with heavy disappointment from thousands of game fans who agreed that the game generally failed to meet expectations.
Since then, fans of the game series had been waiting and effectively whetting their own appetites, in anticipation for Diablo 4. It was expected that the BlizzCon 2019, Blizzard’s annual gaming convention which is just a few weeks away, will see the announcement of the fifth installment, Diablo 4. However, an unofficial announcement has come in, in the form of a leak from a German magazine called Game Star.
The most recent edition of the Game Star magazine includes an advertisement for a forthcoming artbook titled “The Art of Diablo.” A line in the ad reads in German, but nearly translates to “over 500 artworks from Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.”
The advertisement is not an official move from Blizzard but is instead from Panini, the book’s publisher. Regardless, the book was reportedly created with help from Blizzard. For example, The Art of Diablo has two authors, one of which is a Blizzard senior writer, Robert Brooks. The book also has Blizzard Entertainment as an official publisher and is available to be pre-ordered.
Fans have tried to explain how a leak like that could have happened. Some think that the ad may have been released a little too early and the original plan was most likely to wait for an official announcement at the upcoming BlizzCon 2019. Others have opined that there’s a chance it could be a typo.
However, it’s extremely unlikely that Diablo 4 was included in an ad for a game that simply does not exist and is not already in the works. It has also been pointed out by Game Star that the fact that the games were arranged as “Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3 and Diablo 4”, could not in any way have been a coincidence. Finally, on speculation, some quarters claim that Diablo 4 in the ad might be a reference to the fourth Diablo installment – Diablo Immortal – and not about a new Diablo game.
Gaming and entertainment website, Polygon, reached out to Blizzard and reported that an official spokesperson has promised interesting news soon. The spokesperson said:
“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but next week we will have exciting news to share so please stay tuned.!”
Away from Diablo news, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) stock is currently just a little over 0.2% from its 20-Day Simple Moving Average (SMA). It has moved -0.51% in the last week, and -0.85% in the last month. General ATVI year-to-date (YTD) performance so far is at 17.11% and it’s currently at $55.51, a 1.78% increase from its $54.54 previous close.