Strip away the rhetoric and ask the simple question: why has Diablo 4 felt like a different game every few seasons? According to game director Zaven Haroutunian, there is a straightforward explanation. The answer is not incompetence or indecision, but rather the nature of action RPGs themselves.
"It's almost like a meme at this point about action RPGs in general [that] go through this transformative arc, and, well, we can't escape it any more than any other action RPG can for the same reasons," Haroutunian told PC Gamer in a recent interview.
He explained that players of action RPGs "change as they play that action RPG more and they start requiring different things," and that "friction points that we could never imagine suddenly rear their head over the course of 10,000 hours." This framing resets the conversation. A problem is not a failure if it only becomes apparent after thousands of players have invested thousands of hours testing a system.
The story of Diablo 4 over the last three years has involved constant reworks of basic systems. Loot was "reborn" in its second season, then changed yet again the following year, and the max level was reduced from 100 to 60 when the expansion launched. For players who do not log in regularly, this probably looks chaotic. But Haroutunian's argument has genuine force: you cannot know a system is broken until the playerbase has properly stress-tested it at scale.
The paragon system has become a specific point of frustration, with Haroutunian calling paragon points a "really good example" of a system "that's starting to feel like why am I doing this?" While the paragon system will not change in the upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion, it remains on Blizzard's list of things the company would like to fix.
Yet this pattern is not unique to Blizzard. Path of Exile has made significant changes to its endgame systems, borrowing from Path of Exile 2's version while preserving the underlying structure. Instead of finding keys to enter specific maps, keys are now generic items used to open nodes on the Atlas, which is how it works in Path of Exile 2. Other action RPGs face identical pressure to rework mechanics as communities evolve.
There is a real tension here. Haroutunian stressed that "the intention is not to replace everything just because we can," suggesting Blizzard wants to balance responsiveness against stability. One player reflected that they are "glad to feel confident knowing the most annoying things probably won't last forever," but hope "Blizzard can uphold that balance of recognizing when too much change is a bad thing and to be OK with leaving some things as they are." That is the challenge Blizzard faces: knowing when to fix something and when to leave it alone.
The uncomfortable truth is that live-service games exist in permanent beta. Players who expect stability after three years should probably recalibrate their expectations. But those who want a finished product deserve honesty about what Blizzard is actually running. Diablo 4 is not finished, and may never be. That is either the point, or it is the problem.