And somewhere in the middle of all this activity, Diablo III quietly reached Season 40 without receiving a similar revival.
That contrast has become one of the more interesting questions surrounding Blizzard's anniversary celebrations. The company is increasingly willing to revisit old worlds, repair old relationships and invest in games that many assumed had reached the end of their development. Yet Diablo III, which helped carry the franchise for more than a decade, remains largely confined to recurring seasonal themes and familiar content.
It is still alive. It is still enjoyable. But in a year when Blizzard seems determined to prove that old games can have new futures, Diablo III is a rather conspicuous exception.
BlizzCon 2026 Was a Celebration of Games That Refused to Die
The most surprising moment at BlizzCon was not necessarily the announcement of Diablo V. A new Diablo was inevitable sooner or later, and Blizzard has never been particularly reluctant to announce games several years before anyone can actually play them. More remarkable was the decision to bring Xal'atath into Heroes of the Storm, a game whose active development had effectively been wound down in 2022.
Warcraft III received even more substantial attention. Forsaken Kingdom introduced a new story campaign exploring the rise of the Forsaken, accompanied by the game's 3.0 update. More than two decades after Warcraft III first appeared, Blizzard was adding fresh campaign content rather than merely maintaining the existing experience.
Writing for PC Gamer on October 12, Kwanghee Woo examined whether these developments represented a return to the Blizzard that older fans remember. His conclusion was cautiously optimistic, although he also highlighted Diablo III's absence from the renewed investment in classic games.
And that is where things become complicated. Blizzard is clearly demonstrating that age alone does not disqualify a game from receiving meaningful new content. Warcraft III is considerably older than Diablo III, while Heroes of the Storm has spent years existing in a state somewhere between retirement and stubborn refusal to leave the building.
Diablo III, by comparison, has a functioning seasonal community and an established progression system that continues to attract returning players.
Season 40 Proves Diablo III Still Has an Audience
On October 2, Diablo III launched Season 40 with the return of Light's Calling and Angelic Crucibles. The theme allows players to Sanctify Legendary equipment, giving familiar builds extraordinary powers and occasionally turning the screen into something resembling a supernatural fireworks accident.
It is a good seasonal theme. Some of the Sanctified Powers remain delightfully excessive, and Diablo III's fast progression still makes returning for a few weeks an attractive proposition. Players can create a new character, collect Haedrig's Gift, assemble a powerful build and start clearing Greater Rifts without spending half their free time investigating fifteen different crafting systems.
We explored exactly that appeal when asking whether Diablo III is still worth playing in 2026. The answer was yes, although its appeal has changed considerably since the days when Reaper of Souls was the franchise's newest chapter.
The problem is not that Blizzard has stopped supporting the game altogether. Season 40 is real, the seasonal journey continues, and systems such as the Altar of Rites remain part of the experience. Even when console players encounter frustrating problems with Challenge Rifts and Altar progression, there is still an active game worth maintaining.
What Diablo III no longer receives is the sort of substantial new development that Blizzard has suddenly shown itself willing to provide elsewhere.
Could Diablo III Actually Benefit From New Content?
There is an argument that Diablo III does not need another expansion. Its story reached a recognizable conclusion, Adventure Mode provides a perfectly serviceable endgame framework, and the established seasonal structure is remarkably good at keeping the game approachable. Adding enormous new systems might undermine some of the simplicity that makes it enjoyable in the first place.
But there is a considerable distance between developing another full expansion and doing absolutely nothing beyond rotating existing themes.
A new collection of Legendary items, additional Greater Rift environments, revised underused class sets or even a small anniversary questline could make a familiar season feel different again. Diablo III does not necessarily need another act or an entirely new class. Sometimes giving players something genuinely unfamiliar to discover is enough.
Blizzard is already exploring similar territory with Diablo II: Resurrected's changes to forgotten Unique items. Those adjustments do not fundamentally reinvent Diablo II, but they make equipment that has spent decades gathering dust potentially interesting again. It is a modest approach to updating an old game without sacrificing its identity.
Diablo III has plenty of forgotten Legendary powers and underused builds that could benefit from the same philosophy.
Of course, there are practical considerations. Diablo IV remains an active live-service game, Diablo Immortal receives frequent updates, and Diablo V is already scheduled for Spring 2029. Developers, artists and designers cannot work on every Diablo game simultaneously, and Blizzard has never promised another major Diablo III update.
But that makes the recent attention given to Heroes of the Storm and Warcraft III all the more interesting. Blizzard has demonstrated that commercial age and reduced popularity are not necessarily the final word on whether a game deserves new content.
Diablo III Deserves More Than Being Remembered
There is something rather ironic about Diablo III's position in 2026. For years, it was criticized for being too colourful, too generous with loot and too far removed from Diablo II's darker atmosphere. Now many of those same qualities have become its greatest strengths. It is fast, accessible, mechanically polished and completely comfortable with allowing players to become absurdly powerful.
Diablo IV offers a different experience, while Diablo V appears determined to revisit some of the deeper character-building traditions of Diablo II. There is room for Diablo III to remain something distinct rather than simply becoming an obsolete version of whatever came afterward.
And that may be the most important lesson of Blizzard's renewed interest in its past. Old games do not necessarily need to compete with their successors. Sometimes they survive because they offer something their successors deliberately chose to leave behind.
Heroes of the Storm has received another hero. Warcraft III has received another campaign. Diablo II continues to evolve through its modern expansion and balance updates.
Diablo III has reached Season 40.
That is an achievement worth celebrating, but it also raises a rather reasonable question: if Blizzard is willing to give its older games another chapter, why shouldn't Diablo III be considered?
There are still Nephalem willing to answer the call.
And after forty seasons, Sanctuary has surely earned at least one new surprise.
Sources: PC Gamer – Does Blizzard's Revival of Its Classic Games Signal a Return of the Old Blizzard? and Blizzard – Everything Announced at BlizzCon 2026.
