It's already been a little over a year since Diablo 4's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. In that time, the game has gone through several seasons. And just like last time, it's about to make sweeping changes to loot that feel like table-setting for an expansion-level update.
Blizzard released a roadmap at the start of the year and pretty much everything on it has come and gone. A few things have shifted around—like leaderboards coming earlier than expected next season—but the new expansion for 2026 still hasn't been announced.
In a recent interview with Diablo 4 streamer Rob2628, the developers gave a pretty clear hint on when the expansion news will finally arrive. Rob brought up an image recently datamined from the game that reads December 12 in Chinese, which happens to be the same day (taking time zones in account) as this year's The Game Awards show.
He asked associate game director Zaven Haroutunian and lead live game designer Colin Finer if Diablo fans should watch it. Haroutunian, leaning close to his webcam and smiling, replied, "Everyone should be watching it. We're all gamers, we're gonna watch it."
I think that's about as close to an official tease as you're going to get. Blizzard is waiting until next September for BlizzCon, so a Game Awards announcement would make sense if the expansion is going to be out before late next year.
Even as someone who pays attention to everything that happens with Diablo 4, there aren't that many hints at what the expansion will be about. There's no way Blizzard would drop an expansion without a new class and I'd expect the story to follow whatever demon is terrorizing Sanctuary after Lilith's defeat. Everything else is based on stray remarks from developers, like their comments about having issues with the current skill tree and how it limits build creativity if you don't have the right items paired with it. If I had to bet on anything, it would be a big skill tree rework, but that's the only thing I'm fairly certain of happening.
I'm not as sure about the potential mishap that might hint at the next class being a paladin. A build of the game had "paladin" in the name and people caught it just as Blizzard was hosting an NDA'd testing session with Diablo streamers. I don't know if I'm ready to get my hopes up about a random build name, but it's very possible that was a revealing mistake.
Diablo 4's next season will start in early December and I expect we'll know if the next season will coincide with the expansion or not very soon.
