Diablo IV announced, surprising absolutely nobody

Blizzard have clearly decided to start BlizzCon with a bang.

Actually, that's not quite right. Blizzard actually started BlizzCon with an apology. They apologized for the whole Blitzchung fiasco, with Blizzard president J. Allen Brack somberly admitting that they first "moved too quickly" when landing on Blitzchung like a ton of bricks, and then "were too slow to talk with all of you," presumably meaning Blizzard's fans. He ended with, "I’m sorry and I accept accountability," which is as entirely meaningless here as it was when Mark Zuckerberg said the same thing under oath during U.S. Congressional hearings.

The expected anti-Blizzard protests are underway, too, although they're apparently not very large. Overall, it looks like Blizzard's strategy of keeping their heads down and hoping that a blizzard of BlizzCon game announcements would swamp coverage of the protests is paying off.

And, lo! those product announcements. Blizzard, apparently realizing that they needed to earn back some serious fan goodwill points, did not play coy this time, making fans wait through a bunch of shit that they didn't care about before faking them out with a mobile game announcement. No, this time, they started with their biggest gun: Diablo IV. Which looks really, really, really... meh.

I mean, none of it's bad, but there was very little story in the story trailer, and even less gameplay in the gameplay trailer, which was one-third cinematic framing device. What literal gameplay was shown appeared only in very quick cuts, which is a great way of "punching up" boring content and immediately makes me suspicious. Only bog-standard ARPG gameplay was shown, too, with no time spent detailing any of the game's RPG systems -- something of a sticking point, given that Diablo III didn't have any.

There was one totally new element shown, though, one which has never appeared in a Diablo game before: mounts! Which were first introduced to the ARPG genre back in 2004, when Sacred did them. Gee, how innovative. Well done, Blizzard. [/sarcasm]

So... yeah. Not excited. Not pre-ordering. Not buying at launch. Likely not buying until there's been at least one expansion pack, and a Battle Chest edition, and then only if reviews are amazing. Seriously, after the shit state that Diablo III launched in, and the way Blizzard literally gaslighted disappointed customers to make us doubt whether Diablo II was ever actually good, Diablo IV would have to be the very best game ever made to bring me back as a paying customer.

Now, if D4 is free to play on release? Well, at that point, it will depend on the microtransactions. I'm not just throwing this out for shits and giggles, either; the gameplay trailer only showed three playable character classes, with an archer/ranger type being conspicuously absent, so it's not too much of a stretch to think that the game could launch as a free-to-play with three playable classes, and then sell other classes as paid mtx. Of course, they could also launch it for $60 with three playable classes and then sell other classes as paid DLC, something which has precedent in the Diablo franchise.