‘Throwing bodies at the problem’

“Diablo IV” had multiple internal, unannounced release dates. At one point, 2021 was floated as an internal goal. A more specific date emerged — December 2022 — after the title was publicly announced in 2019 at the company’s annual gaming convention BlizzCon. Developers appealed for more time to avoid massive cuts to the game. After moving the date to April 2023, the team felt it still needed more time and was able to get the June date approved.

The June date feels harder to move, several employees say.

“We’re at the point where they’re not willing to delay the game anymore,” said a current Blizzard Albany employee. “So we all just have to go along and figure out how much we’re willing to hurt ourselves to make sure the game gets released in a good enough state.”

Blizzard did not comment on “Diablo IV’s” release dates.

“The problem with games like Diablo is that they are actually quite content heavy,” said a former longtime Blizzard employee, who added that the Diablo team’s desire to break free from “Diablo III” meant finding new solutions to systems that the previous installment had already established. “You can only do so much to power through all those environments, monsters and character animations. Blizzard quality isn’t something you can throw people at.”

To help get “Diablo IV” over the finish line, Activision Blizzard enlisted industry veterans known for shipping games on time: video game industry veteran Rod Fergusson and Vicarious Visions, now known as Blizzard Albany.

Employees described Fergusson, now in charge of the entire Diablo series, as holding regular weekly Zoom meetings he dubbed the “Rodcast,” where several hundred people would join. Fergusson would discuss movies he enjoyed or celebrities he had spent time with. He would also address the team’s problem with attrition and share employee survey results, but employees felt that not much actually came out of these discussions. Fergusson did not reply to a request for comment. Blizzard did not comment.

“To me, he came off as a bit of a clout chaser about where he came from, like ‘Gears of War,’” said a former employee. “People got frustrated because we all thought he was gonna come in and fix the game. And when nothing happened, that’s when you started to see this massive turnover.”

Activision acquired Vicarious Visions in 2005, but it was not until April 2021 that it fully merged the brands, and changed Vicarious’s name to Blizzard Albany. The studio had a reputation for shipping games on time, and was known for its work on series including Guitar Hero and Crash Bandicoot.

In August of 2021, the former studio head of Vicarious Visions, Jen Oneal, was promoted to Blizzard co-leader alongside Mike Ybarra, who joined Blizzard in 2019. Three months later, Oneal stepped down.

As reported last year by the Wall Street Journal, Oneal complained to Blizzard’s legal team that she was discriminated against and underpaid compared to Ybarra. She did not return requests for comment.

Vicarious Visions employees said no one could have predicted what becoming part of Blizzard would entail: the ongoing lawsuits, the loss of the Vicarious Visions name and logo, and the allegations of how Oneal was treated.

“You’re like, ‘Man, I feel like I’m working for the bad guys,’” said the female former Blizzard Albany employee. “I feel like any work I do is tainted by this name.”

Bringing on Vicarious helped with production, though the process to merge the teams was bumpy. Adding a new team that had less experience on the Diablo series with few plans for managing the integration led to difficulties around duplicate work. Blizzard did not comment on merging the teams.

Last year, developers in Albany and Irvine were working on a battle pass and a Season Journey for “Diablo IV.” The Season Journey, which also existed in “Diablo III,” was supposed to challenge players at the end of each chapter. But over time, it morphed into a second battle pass. Eventually, the team judged that the two were duplicates, and ultimately cut one of the battle passes, scrapping work.

“At a certain point, throwing bodies at the problem does not solve the problem,” said a current Blizzard Albany employee, about Blizzard’s strategy of buying more studios to aid development. “If you add them late enough in the project, it doesn’t … matter that you hired an entire studio, because they’ll never be up to date in time to help on the shipping game. So all you’ve done is hire people who are going to work on the expansion.”

Employees are mixed on whether the final, finished product will sate fans and be fun to play.

Some said it would be fun, while others suggested that review scores for the game would come out to be mediocre but passable. Most agreed that crunching to hit a specific release date resulted in a strained development process that could impact the quality of the game, but more importantly, the health of employees.

“You’re not getting shot at right now,” the male former team lead said. “Why are you stressing everybody out? Somebody’s not at an operating table. You’re not in an emergency room. You don’t need to put that amount of stress on it.”