The success of Diablo IV's release is astounding. But is Diablo IV the best or the worst video game ever created? Depending on your opinion, the truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle. The Diablo IV community is currently experiencing an influx of people unfamiliar with the 20-year-old RPG tradition. Seasons were introduced in Diablo II in 2003 and were later refined and expanded upon in Path of Exile and Diablo III.

Let's start by contrasting Diablo IV with its predecessor, Diablo Immortal. The level of buzz surrounding the 2018 reveal of Diablo Immortal. When it finally debuted in 2022, almost four years later, it generated a lot of buzz. After a decade, Diablo finally got a new game. A new installment in the series was desperately needed by the fans. However, Diablo Immortals' popularity quickly dipped below that of its ten-year-old sister Diablo III. Diablo Immortal's lead over Candy Crush would last barely a month, making it much more likely that it would eventually fall behind. Surprisingly, one month after Diablo Immortal's release, even the now-20-year-old Diablo II proved considerably more popular than Diablo Immortal.

Blizzard had a hard time attracting players despite the free game and mobile device availability. It was well documented then, and the media had several theories about why they were still playing it. Blizzard didn't have it all terrible, though; the game earned about $500 million in its first 11 months. It took 11 months for Diablo Immortal to earn $500 million in sales. In just five days, Diablo IV earned $666,000,000 in revenue. Diablo IV accomplished in five days what Diablo Immortal took a year to do. Creators of high-quality PC and console games continue to reap considerable financial rewards. More than seven times as much attention was paid to Diablo IV as to Diablo Immortal. Since Diablo IV is outselling its immediate predecessor, Diablo Immortal, significantly, I don't think we need to worry about the Diablo franchise transitioning to a mobile-only format anytime soon. And what about other action role-playing games?

So how does Path of Exile for Diablo III stack up against Diablo IV? Before we move on, let's discuss whether or not seasons are beneficial to Diablo IV and comparison of Diablo IV to other Action Role-Playing games.

With Diablo IV, what works best? Many new gamers are scratching their heads over "Seasons" after the announcement of Diablo IV's first season. For this reason, I thought it would be fascinating to compare the success of two fantastic ARPGs, one of which has had great seasons and one of which kind of didn't, because I'm seeing a lot of people who are angry about the possibility of having to start again every few months. This has a clear result on player longevity and development. Before the release of Diablo Board, we'll contrast the two genre heavyweights, Path of Exile and Diablo III. Path of Exile incorporated the time of year into its own DNA. Especially in its first few years, Diablo III failed to make a dent. as well as the impact that double goblins had on both player bases over time.

Diablo III became the fastest-selling PC game of all time, among many other milestones it set. It was a huge success for Blizzard, but following the initial triumph of the launch, things seemed to go downhill for the company. Despite patches, Diablo III failed to capitalize on the seasonal approach that had proven successful for its predecessor, Diablo II, ten years prior. Things didn't improve until 2014, two years after the game's release. Reaper of Souls was a huge success for Diablo III, as it fixed many problems gamers had been complaining about and breathed new life into the game. Diablo III wouldn't get seasonal content until late 2014, over 2.5 years after its initial release.

Let's contrast that with Path of Exile, a de facto successor to Diablo II. To put it mildly, it resembled a Diablo. Strangely, Path of Exile's open Beta in January 2013 attracted more players than the full release in October of the same year. Path of Exile's first Anarchy and Onslaught leagues began when the game was still in beta in 2013, which was not a good omen for the cooperative action role-playing game. When comparing the initial success of these two video games, the gap is as clear as the proverbial night and day. Path of Exile was released by an independent developer who had never released a game.

In contrast, Diablo was released by a AAA firm with a nearly unbeatable lineage of titles. You can see how much more successful the launch of Diablo III was than the launch of Path of Exile, and when you consider that Diablo III required payment to play, whereas Path of Exile was free to play, you can understand just how successful Diablo III's launch was. Don't forget the success of seasons and leagues by looking at the contrast between Diablo III and Path of Exiles. Without Seasons, the Diablo III community had little incentive to stick around, and the game quickly fell behind the new indie hit Path of Exile. When Diablo released the Reaper of Souls addition, it immediately took a substantial lead and maintained it for about a year.

However, when Path of Exile released the free Awakening expansion, it quickly regained the upper hand by adding Act 4 to the game. Diablo III, inspired by the popularity of Path of Exile's Seasons or leagues as it calls them, incorporated the seasonal events that its 2003 predecessor, Diablo II, had brought to the genre. Here's a tidbit of backstory from Diablo II's second season to give you some perspective on how much the genre has evolved over the years: In 2004, as World of Warcraft was about to be released, Blizzard held a race to level cap. The prize package includes, among other things, a signed copy of World of Warcraft. Estimate how long the victor took to reach the highest Diablo II level. 50 days! The champion took 50 days of nonstop play to reach the maximum level. Diablo II was mostly about progressing through levels, and those days are long gone. The game had no true goal; instead, gaining levels was the point.

If you're curious about the character's class, you can be assured that it was a sorceress. The second season would introduce the game's now-iconic Rune words. While we haven't seen these in Diablo IV, we will shortly, perhaps with a new season or expansion. It's simply too obvious not to, right? For a long time, Diablo III Seasons didn't do much beyond resetting the board like its predecessor; players created new characters and worked to unlock new rewards, but the game itself didn't change drastically outside of the occasional addition of a few new legendaries. Each season of Path of Exile added a significant amount of material and adjustments to the game. New bosses and totally new systems, making it the most active ARPG community from 2016 to 2023 and dethroning Diablo III in the process.

While Path of Exile wasn't as well-known as Diablo III, it had a larger player base. The answer is obvious; leaks occurring roughly every three months like clockwork allowed this tiny game to overtake the Titan that developed the genre known as Diablo. My number one piece of advice to everyone who has been whining about Seasons or leagues is to give them a shot. Path of Exile was created with a fraction of the marketing budget and a fraction of the development budget of Diablo. Still, decades of data suggest this is the greatest method to retain and build an ARPG player base. If Blizzard throws its back into Diablo IV, it will be incredible. There were rumblings that Blizzard's higher management was unsatisfied with Diablo III's reaction and quickly abandoned the game, instead focusing on reviving the series with Diablo IV.

The long-awaited release of Diablo IV has finally arrived. How does it stack up against other action role-playing games? After much anticipation, Diablo IV was released on June 6th, or more accurately, June 1st. On June 1st, millions of people were playing it. Blizzard's fastest-selling game of all time, surpassing even Diablo III and Path of Exile's respective launches. Diablo 1 sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, Diablo II sold over 4 million copies as of 2001 and will sell over 5 million additional copies of Diablo II resurrected by 2022, and Diablo IV sold over 8 million copies in just the first five days, earning $666 million. According to a 2013 blog post by designer Chris Wilson, the initial release of Path of Exile saw 3.7 million free downloads in its first year. 3.7 is a ridiculously impressive statistic for any business, much less a little independent developer like Deb.

Blizzard once again demonstrated that when they want to dominate the market, they can, by all accounts, use the Diablo moniker to their advantage. Already a huge financial success, Diablo IV has just scratched the surface. Longtime fans of action role-playing games know that completing an RPG is more of a marathon than a Sprint. Thus, the battle is far from over. They are anticipating the future and thinking about Blizzard's post-launch support for Diablo. This time, they do not forget how little material and seasons Diablo III received. They recalled thinking, "What if Blizzard did that with Diablo III?" after viewing the Path of Exile Leagues with NB. Well, Blizzard is unwilling to repeat its initial season's stumbles just six weeks after the game's release. The blue blizzard mindset that governed Diablo III is not at work here.

The premiere season announcement seems hastily made. The trailer showed the same five-second clip of a low-level character repeatedly. It glossed over the most interesting parts of the season, such as the entirely new boss bite, the six new uniques, and the seven new legendaries. We can probably chalk this up to the fact that it's their first season, and they are already working around the clock to implement bug fixes and major changes the community's been asking for. The last one was right before the release of Diablo IV, and I dare say it's on par with a Path of Exile League. The first season of Diablo IV felt similar to the Abyss League in Path of Exile. Like those in Abyss League, heart jewels can be looted from monsters. Like Abyss League, you can explore and battle through a series of randomly generated tunnels; this feature reminds me of Path of Exile League, the highest compliment I can pay to this Diablo IV season.

Diablo IV is currently in the first place and is presently Diablo IV's led to a loss. I've got hundreds of hours in Diablo and Path of Exile, so you can imagine that the size and scope of the upcoming seasons will determine Diablo IV's future success. We should avoid letting any single ARPG become the standard. Fanboys of either camp should keep this in mind: the quality of their preferred ARPG is ultimately determined by the quality of the alternatives. Ultimately, I believe this to be a case of "a rising tide lifts all boats." The fact that Path of Exile had its most successful season to date despite Diablo IV's massive popularity between its beta and launch shows that having multiple good ARPGs bringing players into the genre only increases the player base size of both games. In 2023, right after the beta and just before the introduction of Diablo IV, to again put the Diablo franchise's power into perspective, Diablo Force's beta was more popular than the most popular season of Path of Exile. Diablo IV's release was attended by an unprecedented number of players, dwarfing even Path of Exile's most successful season.

Is Blizzard prepared to go to bat for those players?  This time around, we know for sure two things. One, Blizzard is already making ten times the effort it did with G3 to keep those players. Two, anyone who still thinks ARPG leagues or seasons are a horrible idea is, well, obviously not paying attention.
 

Azfar Rayan (@AzfarRayan)
Editor, NoobFeed