Company employees have come forwards Diablo IV Boosting, anonymously, and reported to The Washington Post that the leaked release date is going to require a "crunch" from the Diablo 4 teams. Blizzard has asked employees to work overtime leading up to the launch. According to the sources, a timely launch is either going to require a lot of extra hours from the workforce or cutting off certain features. Some estimated that even with the crunch a launch in early June might not be attainable. The interviewed employees also told The Washington Post that the payment for overtime was not adequate, although no actual figures were revealed.
Blizzard responded that Diablo 4 development is going well, although during the iterative process things are bound to change. There's no game-wide crunch either, at least not yet. According to Blizzard Entertainment spokesperson Andrew Reynolds, specific teams have been offered overtime, and it is entirely voluntary. The company offers benefits to employees that take on a harsher schedule. The employees that work more than 10 hours receive a daily $25 DoorDash credit, and the company has also offered double-performance stocks.
Blizzard hasn't officially announced the release date, so the alleged early June launch might still change. This wouldn't be the first time Blizzard has had to postpone the Diablo 4 launch. Roughly a year ago, Blizzard had to announce the inevitable delay for Diablo 4. This moved the release window from 2022 to 2023. To make it more stressful for Blizzard, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is estimated to conclude around the same time. That is if it goes through with the antitrust regulators.
Diablo 4 will launch in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE: Diablo 4: Predicting the Early Class Meta
Source: Washington Post
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