ARPG April Competition: Can Diablo 4 Season 8 Stand Out?
When Diablo 4 was launched in 2023, this classic IP sequel set a record with 9.3 million copies sold in the first month. But, with the release of its first seasonal update, the game's reviews began to decline. It was severely criticized by fans because it not only weakened most of the builds in the game, but also made it more difficult to gain experience points. The quality of subsequent post-launch support was also uneven, with good and bad.
D4 is currently at the end of Season 7, and soon, the game's Season 8 update is coming. D4 is facing an unprecedented competitive landscape. Developer recently revealed that the next season of Diablo 4 will focus mainly on improving the difficulty of the game's boss battles. Although there is no definite news on the release time of Season 8, it should be launched after the end of Season 7 - that is, some time after April 29, 2025.
However, this release time may lead to very fierce competition for Season 8, as several other ARPG will also release major content updates in the same month.
Path Of Exile 2
First is the familiar opponent - Path Of Exile 2, whose patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt has been announced to be released on April 4. This time may be less than a month away from the release of Diablo 4 Season 8. What's more fatal is that this will be a very large patch, bringing rich new content: a new Huntress class, a new endgame boss battle involving Tetzcal, Blazing Guardian, and a weapon lock feature, etc.
It is worth noting that before this, many players who were dissatisfied with the development trend of D4 have already turned to play POE 2. The increase and decrease in the number of players of these two games also shows the fierce competition between the two.
Last Epoch
In addition, April is not just about Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4. They have major updates. Another ARPG, Last Epoch Season 2, will also be launched.
The official name of Last Epoch Season 2 is Tombs of the Erased. It will introduce a new faction called Woven, alongside some new endgame content and an overhaul of Sentinel class.
In order to avoid colliding with Path Of Exile 2, the release date of Tombs of the Erased has been postponed to April 17, which is about two weeks later. This time arrangement is very interesting - when players have experienced the new content of POE2, they can just experience the new fun brought by Last Epoch. After that, there is still a Diablo 4 Season 8 update that has not yet been clearly updated.
This kind of relay update is not common in the past. Last Epoch developer even claimed that they want to create an April carnival for ARPG players. It is not difficult to imagine how fierce competition Diablo 4 will face this time.
Other Speculations
Faced with such a challenging situation, postponing D4 Season 8 update may be the best solution. According to experience, if the interval between content updates of similar games is less than 21 days, the player conversion rate of the delayed game will drop significantly. Especially considering that PoE2 and Last Epoch both adopt the model of free main body + season pass, the developer of D4 need to think carefully about the business strategy of Season 8. Perhaps after the update, players can be given some benefits, such as Diablo 4 Gold.
Perhaps what Diablo 4 needs most right now is not new content, but time to breathe. Postponing the season to mid-May can not only avoid direct conflict but also take advantage of the player fatigue period that may occur after the update of competitors, and this peak-shifting strategy has been proven to be effective in the past.
This may be the most critical one since the birth of Diablo series. Because three major isometric action RPGs will launch large updates one after another this month, D4 Season 8 may be difficult to attract a large number of players as usual. But for players, this is undoubtedly a carnival.
