Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo 4 will be the first new Activision Blizzard title to hit the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, head of Xbox president Sarah Bond announced Thursday during an episode of the Official Xbox Podcast. Diablo 4 will become available on March 28, Bond said, and it sounds like the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed games bound for Game Pass.
Microsoft officially acquired Activision Blizzard in October, as part of a protracted and highly contested deal worth an estimated $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard’s stable of franchises, including Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo, are now owned by Microsoft.
When that acquisition closed last fall, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said that Game Pass subscribers should not expect a day-one drop of the Activision Blizzard games catalog on the service. “I know there will be some disappointment about that,” Spencer said at the time. “This acquisition is definitely long-term, so the fact that we’re not hitting day one with a bunch of games dropping in to Game Pass is a little bit of a downer, but I’m very excited about the future. And I just want to be straight with people that that’s where we are.”
A slower rollout of Activision Blizzard games on Game Pass may frustrate subscribers, but it’s clearly in Microsoft’s best interest to roll out those games over time in order to keep the service’s offerings fresh month to month. Microsoft also has a long list of back catalog titles to choose from, including other games in the Diablo franchise, annual Call of Duty titles, and classic games that would be supported through backward compatibility.
Diablo 4 was originally released on May 30, 2023, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Originally released on PC through Blizzard’s Battle.net service, the company later released Diablo 4 through Steam — one of just two Blizzard games to make the jump to Valve’s storefront to date.
Later this year, the first expansion for Diablo 4, titled Vessel of Hatred, is expected to launch. Vessel of Hatred will bring with it a brand-new class — one that’s completely new to the Diablo universe — and will kick off Blizzard’s plan to release a new expansion for Diablo 4 annually.
