Blizzard’s latest hiring spree is likely for the unannounced ‘Diablo 4’

By Steven Petite January 18, 2019

Diablo 3 on Switch Image used with permission by copyright holder

Activision Blizzard has a slew of new job openings available, including 17 for a currently unannounced Diablo project. It stands to reason that at least some of these positions are for Diablo 4, the currently unannounced game that is currently in development, according to Kotaku.

Discovered by VGCultureHQ, the most interesting opening is for a quest designer.

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The Diablo team is looking for a talented content designer with a combined gameplay and storytelling background to help us create play areas, quests, characters, and dialogue for an upcoming project. The ideal candidate must be able to collaborate within design, audio, localization, and engineering groups to efficiently and creatively implement quest-focused content and write compelling game narrative with a firm understanding of how story translates into gameplay.

In a list of application materials is this telling line: “Your experience with PC and console role-playing games.” While Diablo Immortal is on the horizon for mobile, the mainline Diablo games have only ever appeared on PC and consoles (starting with Diablo 3). According to reports following BlizzCon 2018, Diablo 4 has been significantly reworked on at least two times in the past four years.

MMO | Diablo Immortal Hands-on — Diablo Immortal Blizzard Entertainment

In December, Blizzard confirmed that multiple Diablo projects would be revealed in 2019, so it’s possible that the job openings relate to a different, unannounced title in the franchise. For instance, it seems odd that Blizzard would be hiring a quest designer for Diablo 4 four years after development reportedly began. The most likely conclusion is that some of the jobs are for Diablo 4, while others are for unannounced projects that are complete unknowns.

The big takeaway here is that Blizzard absolutely has more PC/console Diablo games in the pipeline. Despite the backlash that the Diablo Immortal reveal stirred, it’s clear that longtime Diablo fans have much to look forward to in the years ahead. As Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham assured us at BlizzCon 2018, the team hasn’t forgotten about core Diablo fans.

While fans wait for an official Diablo 4 reveal, we suggest not sleeping on Diablo Immortal, which we found to be a fun take on the loot-driven action when we played it at BlizzCon 2018.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

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