Blizzard Employees Skeptical About Diablo 4’s Promised June 6 Launch Date
Blizzard’s announcement that Diablo 4 will be launching on June 6th next year during The Game Awards 2022 is apparently an overly ambitious one if inside sources are to be believed. According to a new exposé by The Washington Post, the highly awaited game’s launch date has already been pushed back internally multiple times and employees are complaining about poor wages and excessive crunch that has forced some of the studio’s top developers to leave.
“One group of about 20 developers working on one portion of the game saw about half of its members leave within a year, according to two former employees,” sources told The Post. Blizzard workers also recounted the negative effects that the ridiculous work hours have had on their personal lives and their health, not to mention the loss of talented developers who got fed up and left.
“We were never going to hit our date without crunch,” said a former Blizzard Albany employee. “We’re at the point where they’re not willing to delay the game anymore,” said another. “So we all just have to go along and figure out how much we’re willing to hurt ourselves to make sure the game gets released in a good enough state.”
A Blizzard Entertainment representative, however, claims that its employee surveys show that the professional well-being of its employees are “the most positive they’ve been in years.” The company is also apparently offering company shares as incentives for voluntary overtime and staying with the company, which employees say only encourages crunch time and cutting corners to deliver a game that only just meets the standards.
Workers also reported that the game’s development under Luis Barriga and Jesse McCree, both of whom have been fired due to sexual harassment complaints, lacked focus and that they’d work on various parts of the game only to have them revamped which subsequently caused further delays. Employees also reported that one point the script contained a graphic rape scene which Blizzard later deemed inappropriate and was pulled from the game.
