Every aspect of game development at Activision Blizzard has been impacted by the recent wave of lawsuits and investigations tied to allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Yet perhaps no project has been so directly impacted asDiablo 4, which at the height of the controversy lost its game director without explanation.Diablo 4’s development has continued to move forward, of course, and the Blizzard project is now confirmed to have gained a new game director.
Blizzard shared the news as part of its quarterlyDiablo 4update, written by the new game director. Taking over the project isJoe Shely, who has been promoted from within theDiablo 4development team rather than brought in from another part of Blizzard. Shely has been working onDiablo 4since 2017. He started asDiablo 4’s lead encounter designer and was promoted to lead game design in 2019. When he started onDiablo 4, he’d likely never have predicted he’d, four years later, be the project’s game director.
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Shely has been a part of theDiabloteam going back further than the start ofDiablo 4, too. He spent around three years working onDiablo 3, first as an encounter designer and then leading a team working on theDiablo 3: Rise of the NecromancerDLC. Prior to working onDiablo, Shely spent over eight years working onWorld of Warcraft. That includes working on encounters inThe Burning Crusade,Wrath of the Lich King,Cataclysm, andMists of Pandariaexpansions.
While the quarterlyDiablo 4update focuses largely on the ARPG’s sound design, Shely does take a brief moment to introduce himself. He keeps his message to fans short and to the point. He says that he’s honored to"continue the vision" ofDiablo 4and that he’s humbled to represent the project’s development team.
Shely understandably makes no comment regardingDiablo 4’s previous director, Luis Barriga.Barriga was let go from Blizzard in early August, part of a series of firings tied to a report regarding Blizzard’s “frat culture.” Details surrounding Barriga’s departure remain unavailable and unclear.
The unwritten message of the latestDiablo 4developer update is that work on the project is continuing and the team is trying to put Barriga’s departure behind it. Obviously, that’s not necessarily an easy or realistic thing to do asActivision Blizzard is still in the midst of lawsuits, never mind providing recompense to victims still within the company. That’s a burden thatDiablo 4and its new director will unfortunately have to bear.
Diablo 4is currently in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
