Diablo 4’s Next Expansion After Vessel of Hatred Won’t Come Until 2026

If you were hoping for a new Diablo 4 expansion in 2025, you’re unfortunately going to be waiting just a bit longer. According to Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson, we won’t see the next major Diablo 4 expansion until 2026.

Speaking today at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Fergusson concluded his talk by discussing the team’s plan to strengthen its relationship with its community by taking a leaf out of the books of both Diablo Immortal and World of Warcraft and releasing content roadmaps. He said that soon, we should expect to see a content roadmap for Diablo 4’s 2025 plans, outlining seasons and updates at roughly the times they would show up throughout the year.

However, he said that the game’s next expansion wouldn’t be on that roadmap. It’s not coming until 2026.

“In 2025, or just before Season 8, we will have a 2025 roadmap for Diablo 4. Now, our second expansion won’t be on that roadmap, because our second expansion is coming in 2026, but at least players will have the road ahead.”

Fergusson did not go into much detail about why the second expansion had been pushed, but did offer some clues earlier in the talk. Previously, Blizzard had announced an intention to release annual expansions, with Vessel of Hatred in 2024 and presumably a follow-up expansion in 2025. However, as Fergusson described during the talk, Vessel of Hatred ended up releasing a bit later than they had intended: 18 months after the initial launch of the game rather than 12.

Fergusson noted that this was because while the team generally works a season or two ahead of the current release, reacting to player feedback and necessary adjustments to live content resulted in resources being pulled temporarily from Vessel of Hatred, causing it to be delayed slightly internally from their original intentions and simultaneously pushing all other planned content back too.

Diablo 4 just recently released its Season of Witchcraft, which adds extensive new witchcraft powers, a new questline, and more. We gave the base game of Diablo 4 a 9/10, calling it “a stunning sequel with near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.