Diablo IV 2025 Roadmap Revealed!

The Diablo IV team has just shared their 2025 roadmap, which is packed with interesting information. As expected, the next expansion is listed for 2026, along with a few other tidbits I’ll dive into in a bit. As much excitement as there is for expansions in general, and this one specifically because I can’t wait to see what happens with Maphisto, this year is bringing a lot with it too.

One of the first things I focused on with this roadmap is Blizzard’s expressed commitment to keep developing Diablo IV outside the seasonal framework. Every single, roughly quarterly update will have new additions to systems and improvements to systems, which will help both seasonal players and those who prefer to stick to the Eternal Realm. Many of the system updates and overhauls listed could easily have waited for the expansion as a selling point, but I appreciate that they aren’t making us wait on these.

The two big things are the new Lair Bosses with the Season 8 update and the new Nightmare Dungeon activities coming in the update after that. We already knew new Lair Bosses were coming with the next season and that they are streamlining the system in the next seasonal update. However, the new Nightmare Dungeon activities were news to me and very welcome. Additionally, although the section under the Infernal Chaos update is burned away, it’s safe to say we’ll see more permanent updates listed there as well.

It’s refreshing to see Blizzard following through on the promise of continually working on Diablo IV to make the core game the best it can be, which is upheld in the roadmap. I’m not saying every update needs a new permanent update or QoL change to some system—that’d quickly get out of hand. Updates for the sake of updates can sometimes make things worse. However, Blizzard seems to be listening to feedback and is making thoughtful updates as they can.

Another interesting bit on the roadmap is that they plan to do two IP Collabs this year. Last year, we saw myriad World of Warcraft cosmetics make their way into Diablo IV, most of which worked well even if you didn’t know anything about WoW. I had wondered if maybe it was testing the grounds a bit for other potential crossovers, and it seems like the answer is yes to that. The question is, what other IPs will they go for? 

In today’s blog post they said, “we’re extremely excited to meld the Diablo universe with universes that complement its dark themes.” This may lead some to think of games that are similar to Diablo IV in tone and style, but I’d caution that “complement” isn’t the same as “match”. Sometimes, the perfect complement is something very different from itself. It is also possible that those very different ideas will be significantly Diabloified enough to fit in well. We don’t know for sure what IPs will be involved. The IPs may not even be other games. Regardless of what they do, I look forward to seeing what they incorporate.

As always, I love roadmaps; they help the community know what to expect in a very concise way and are easily referrable. This roadmap also reminds me that I must get back there before the season ends. Is anyone else looking forward to anything particular from the roadmap?