This can’t be true for a company that invented World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Overwatch, right? Diablo IV has opened to overwhelming critical and audience acclaim, and apparently is now the fastest selling game in the storied history of Blizzard Entertainment!
What a release it has been for Diablo IV and Blizzard Entertainment.
Diablo IV has been a smashing success for Blizzard Entertainment as the game has not only been beloved by both critics and audiences, but the game is also apparently the fastest selling game in the long, storied, 32-year history of the gaming giant. And, even though I find it a little hard to believe given the impressive catalog of Blizzard Entertainment’s games, I think it’s great for the Diablo franchise.
The success of this game really is a bittersweet moment for me personally.
On one hand, I absolutely adore the lore, creatures, demons, angels, history, and backstory behind this franchise as the eternal war between the High Heavens vs. the Burning Hells, the extremely complicated (to put it mildly) relationship between the Daughter of Hatred, Lillith, and the fallen angel Inarius, the creation of the Sanctuary, and the creation of the Nephalem is just so cool!
Personally, I think Diablo is Blizzard’s second-greatest franchise (obviously behind Warcraft) in terms of creativity, complexity, world building, and just really cool lore.
Unfortunately, I have such a hard time getting into the actual games themselves as I just can’t stand the top-down/isometric POV Blizzard has implemented. If this game had first person (ex: Call of Duty, Far Cry, Doom, third person, or even second person (if that’s even possible in the gaming sphere), you’d probably never hear from me again as I’d just be playing the game nonstop.
And, I really dislike how you have to have an internet connection to play this game as even though I understand the reason why an internet connection is needed, I’m just not a fan of the recent trend.
So, I doubt I’ll be able to get a review out of the game aside from the barebones observations I’ve seen so far playing just the first section, but that talk is for another article.
As for the headline that Diablo IV is the fastest selling Blizzard game of all-time, that is surprisingly correct…from a certain point of view (Obi-Wan Kenobi would appreciate that reference).
Even though Diablo is one of Blizzard’s “Fabulous 4” game franchises (Overwatch, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft being the other three), the notion that Diablo IV could surpass World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and even Diablo III in being the fastest-ever selling Blizzard game of all-time was a little farfetched given the overwhelming popularity of the three titles.
Overwatch had over 50M players at its peak and had 119M hours played during its first week, World of Warcraft had 12M players at its peak all the way back in 2010 and has continued to average 5M or so players nearly 20 years after its 2005 launch, and Diablo III has sold 30M copies since its 2012 launch and was the PC record holder for the fastest selling game with 6.5M sales after its first week.
Very impressive accomplishments, right?
(Activision Blizzard-Diablo IV-Story Launch Trailer)
Well, according to Blizzard, Diablo IV currently has had 93M hours played in the game and has been played for “over 10,000 years” if you count all the players hours combined since first launching June 2nd.
That’s extremely impressive for a game that was only widely available to the public today.
Now, it’s really hard to tell if this game has sold the 3.5M copies in its first “official day” (June 6th) like Diablo III was able to do, will reach 6.5M copies sold after its first week like Diablo 3, acquires 50M players like Overwatch, or is able to maintain millions of players like World of Warcraft as Blizzard is not likely to release such information about the game.
Nevertheless, with Diablo IV currently scoring 87/100 amongst critics on Metacritic, 9/10 on Steam Reviews, 82/100 on Google Reviews, and the few hours I was able to get through, I can safely say this game is a massive hit.
Lilith would be proud!
Images Source: Featured Image: (Activision Blizzard) (Diablo IV | Story Launch Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Activision Blizzard) (Diablo IV | Story Launch Trailer – YouTube)
