What Is Diablo 4, And How Did It Flop So Horribly? The Infamous Blizzard Game Explained

Diablo 4 is the most recent addition to the Diablo franchise. released on 17 October 2023, it was one of the most anticipated and also the most disappointing games of the year. It was first announced in Blizzcon 2019, and despite lots of backlash and controversy regarding Blizzard Entertainment, its announcement was still received very well by fans of the franchise.

However, the hype slowly faded as more and more details started to show up about the game itself. As the company was facing backlash, particularly due to its ongoing lawsuit, things started to seem much more dreadful. But what happened? And how did Diablo 4 become one of the worst titles in the franchise? Here's everything you need to know.

What Is The Diablo Franchise?

Diablo is an action role-playing game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, there are now 4 games in the franchise, with Diablo 4 being the latest. It is a top-down point-and-click game with most of the actions and commands required to move the player being executed using the left and right mouse buttons (see screenshots below). The first entry in the franchise was released on December 31st, 1996, and received critical acclaim from most major review publications like GameSpot and Computer Games Magazine.

The third game in the franchise, Diablo III, had an unprecedented amount of hype surrounding its release. Over 2 million people pre-ordered the title before its May 2012 release, and there was a lot of buzz in the gaming community around the game itself, such as on 4chan and the official Diablo subreddit /r/diablo. Given the sheer scale and thriving community that the game has, it was safe to say that the launch of the latest game in the franchise was going to be massive.

How Did Diablo 4 Turn Into Such A Flop?

Diablo 4 was first announced at Blizzcon via a gameplay trailer (shown below) and a cinematic trailer. Most online reactions were excited about the announcement of the game, but remained angry with Blizzard, particularly due to its stance on the Hong Kong protests in the past few years, especially after banning a Heartstone player from participating in Blizzard-organized Hearthstone tournaments after he called for the liberation of Hong Kong during a post-game interview.

At the same time, Activision-Blizzard was in the middle of a massive sexual harassment lawsuit, which resulted in the immediate removal of Robert A. Kotick, Activision Blizzard's then-CEO (shown below). Blizzard's plans to monetize the game through a "Game As a Service" system were also seen as incredibly money-hungry by hardcore enthusiasts of the franchise.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has filed an explosive lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for discrimination. Some of the details in the complaint are horrifying https://t.co/rKF3HlaEaY pic.twitter.com/dRuP8HPyqe

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) July 22, 2021

At launch, the game's viewership on Twitch peaked at 937,000 and has now dwindled to only a couple thousand. Fans claim it flopped due to the developers having no sense of direction, very little endgame, and terrible business decisions.

How Is Diablo 4 Used In Memes?

Diablo's downfall wasn't taken lightly by fans, but they were able to find replacement titles, that succeeded where Diablo 4 couldn't, including Path Of Exile and Last Epoch. The game's most recent 1.1 patch, started a slew of memes and reactions online, particularly because it changed a lot of features that made the game worse overall. Numerous memes spread online, often mocking the Blizzard dev team for their questionable decisions (examples shown below).

For the full history of Diablo 4, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia for more information.