
Over the weekend, veteran studio Blizzard hosted its annual BlizzCon fan event and announced two new games: Diablo 5 and an open world StarCraft shooter.
The former is coming in 2029 while the latter is slated for 2030, so from a home-system perspective, these are next-gen games that'll be targeting the next set of consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Native versions for Xbox Helix are a given since Blizzard is now owned by Microsoft, but what about PS6?
Blizzard hasn't confirmed any target platforms, so any PS6 editions are up in the air for now.
In terms of Diablo 5, here's the teaser trailer, which pitches it as another traditional Diablo experience:
The new StarCraft game, meanwhile, is no longer an RTS; it's an open world shooter. Here's the new trailer and the blurb accompanying it:
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE DOMINION ANSWERED THE CALL WHEN MANKIND NEEDED THEM MOST. THEIR COURAGE HELD THE LINE. THEIR SACRIFICE BOUGHT US ANOTHER DAY. NOW THE CALL COMES TO YOU. CARRY THEIR STRENGTH FORWARD. NO MATTER THE COST.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd put my money on Diablo 5 having the best chance of the two of coming to PS6. The past few Diablo games have come to PlayStation, either at launch or some time after the PC debut.
StarCraft, though, has never appeared on any PlayStation console. There's no affiliation there, so if either one skips PS6, I'd expect it to be StarCraft. An open world shooter fits the console audience, though, so we'll have to see what's confirmed in the years to come.



Comments 61
Well, with those release dates neither of them will possibly be on disc on PlayStation, so it won’t really matter to me!
Only time will tell.
But in all honesty, I could see Diablo 5 over Starcraft coming to any future Sony consoles.
@dskatter I wonder if there’ll be a physical version at all. At this point i dont think Xbox will continue with physical either, because if they were going to, they would have certainly used the this perfect PR opportunity to acknowledge that fact by now. But hey, they might still surprise us
Yes haha they absolutely will be PS6 titles
@LogicStrikesAgain If MS keeps making game discs for their next console, I will absolutely buy it and these games to support MS.
This is a statement that would have seemed insane to me only four months ago, as I’ve hated MS for years.
I believe it'll be timed exclusives for about 6 months to a year then it'll release on PS consoles.
@dskatter good for you
@dskatter Yeah, i feel like if they were planning to, we would have probably heard about it already. Especially with all the backlash Sony is getting, it would be an easy win for Xbox. But their silence makes me think they are definitely on the same track as Sony. I mean, if they are continuing with physical, why not broadcast it? They should be shouting it from the rooftops by now lol.
Genuinely curious though. What if Helix will cost $1500? Not saying it will, but what if?
@LogicStrikesAgain Hell, at that point the PS6 will probably be the same price.
That said (and to yank this back on topic a little) maybe we’ll be past the component shortage by then. But ideally they’ll release these games for PS5/Series X/Switch 2 as well so it’ll be a non-issue. After all, it took several years for true current-gen exclusives to drop the 4/XBone. And ActiBlizz is releasing Diablo 4 (which was also a cross-gen release) for Switch 2 this week.
The world will end before Starcraft comes out.
Hope they remove the MMO component from Diablo V. I played the hell out of II and III, but the live service take on IV took me right out of it after I finished the campaign.
@AhmadSumadi Now thats where you’re wrong. They should absolutely keep it. People love live service games, especially Diablo 4, with their ludicrous $65 microtransactions, on top a $70 base game.
People just dont want Playstation dabbling in live service 😂
By 2028 MS will have sold off the box Gaming Division to PIF and by 2029 PIF will have spun-off Blizzard so when the games finally release in 2031 and 2032 they will be on PS6.
AI is expensive. Buying it. Supplying it. Building it. That money MS needs has got to come from somewhere.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/microsoft-commits-2point5-billion-6000-employees-ai-implementation-unit.html
They are probably waiting for the official reveal of the Helix before they announce their disc (or lack thereof) plans.
Hopefully not, i would like to see MS and Sony keep their games on their ecosystems and hardware.
@dskatter okay i'm sorry.
I do believe that this industry is better WITH physical games but why does this matter?
All of these games are online.
Diablo 4 you cant even play without an internet connection.
Hell, blizzard is a PC focused company, a platform that has been exclusively digital for pretty much 2 decades now.
Advocating for a physical release for diablo 5 is like advocating for a traffic light in the middle of the sahara so camels dont bump into each other.
“Will they be on PS6” is the wrong question. They won’t be on PS6, and they won’t be on Xbox either. They’ll be on servers controlled by Blizzard which can be shut down or reconfigured at a moment’s notice. There’s nothing permanent shown here, just seasonal content perpetually being dangled on the end of a stick like a server dependent carrot while people pay actual money to chase it.
More interested in playing a RTS StarCraft game than a shooter
They both will. Xbox will probably be dead by the time they come out.
@LogicStrikesAgain @dskatter To the topic of physical media... I wouldn't bet on the next Xbox having a disc drive. PureXbox had a recent article with 2 reports about the entire supply chain for the components required to make optical disc drives collapsing. The amount of disc manufacturing facilities is declining, assembly lines are pivoting away from the tech as users actively opt for digital-only.
That's why I also don't see Sony backtracking on their decision for a disc drive in the PS6.
@LogicStrikesAgain oh and don't forget you can't purchase the expansions separately. It's the reason I didn't purchase the last one because I had to re-purchase the base game and the 1st expansion which I've already bought. If this egregious behaviour carries over to the next diablo game then blizzard have lost a life long diablo fan. Path of exile 2 is the much better game anyway and its updates are always free..I guess I've answered my own ponderings 🤣
It’s so far away I imagine a lot will have changed by then.
I have no interest in either of these games so it doesn't matter to me, although if they were Xbox exclusive they would be ruining a huge IP by doing so.
M$ bought their discs from Sonys factory and now Sony lower their production and many here seem to think M$ will magically produce their own discs after 2028, how? By building their own factory? Never gonna happen.
So we finally get Starcraft Ghost. The waiting is over! Hallelujah!
Diablo V probably yes, since it will be live service game
StarCraft has certainly less chance...
Definitely not
@dskatter
You won't be getting a disc on pc or on Xbox either so you'll have to wait for a Nintendo release if ever
@Zeke68 Erm isnt this incorrect. Microsoft dont have a disc plant but they arent using sonys.. lol if they were then you think sony would have known about their digital drm licenses printed on disc. Feel like we out to fact check you on this claim.
@Kakun Do so, they (M$) sold their share of the Toshiba factory back in the days and made a long contract with Sony. But by all means, go check for yourself. I worked for both Sony and M$ from early 2000 up to 2012 and I still have friends at that job. You wouldn't believe how much Sony and M$ is in bed with eachother on a "non console-level".
Like every camera lense in Kinect was made by Sony, the blurays was made by Sony / Hitachi for years and the list goes on.
For both these companies, it's just buisness as usual.
Edit: And if you see something made by Sonopress or whatever, remember that Sony have shares in most, if not all, bluray factories around the world.
@Kakun Whilst they may. or may not be printing the disc's it worth noting that everyone, including Sony, has been aware of the unique key on the disc for years, just not what it would eventually be used for in 2026.
It's ironic that the real reason for the unique key 13 years ago was to limit Physical media. They wanted to lock games to your system to prevent resale or game sharing but backed down due to the massive backlash. Back then physical was still the dominant method of purchase so It fell completely flat. They left the keys there as they always wanted to kill the resale market, it's just a happy accident that it also allowed them to offer the disc to digital system which was well received.
Diablo almost certainly, Starcraft possibly.
Though frankly even Xbox themselves can't clearly state what their exclusive policies are so what chance do we have. The plan is the plan until it's not the plan and all that.
Diablo 5, starcraft, physint, od, elder scrolls 6, fallout 5, blade, xbox future looking good
@Balaam_ so like steam
I would suggest to read Esquire interview for Diablo 5 with Joe Shelly, game director.
This is quote :
"When Diablo V eventually arrives, it’ll be about two years into the next console generation."
Blizzard, Diablo 5 Game director says inderectly that next console generation will be launched in 2027. No delays
@LogicStrikesAgain it is already mentioned from Asha, that Helix project is scaled down. If previous main person used "Premium console", then now it seems they distance from that, and it seems it will not be much different from PS6. They will try to be more competetive not niche.
I am little bit excited for Diablo 5. Open world setting is gone. Going back more to old style. Hopefully thry can implement that very nicely. I am enjoying Diablo 4 in general. I have played every season. Season 15 will be huge too this week. But I like that they will try something different from D4. Keep it fresh, even if it is going in some ways more to old design language.
I will wait for my caravan to arrive in less than 3 years time
I have another question. What is the reason these are announced so much in advance? Is it the push from the senior management to bring a positive impact on share prices or there could be any other implication?
2029 & 2030? LMAO! We'll be lucky if theres a planet earth left by that time.
@DiabloSSJ like always. Blizzard announces things early. Diablo 4 was announced 2019. Released in 2023.
Diablo 3 announced 2008, released 2012. Can you see pattern?
@dskatter then why are you still here if Playstation/Sony is so bad? You should already sell your ps5 and move on to PC and steam... and never look back. Discs are in the past.
@LogicStrikesAgain I absolutely agree with you however there could be a plan by MS to keep quiet about having physical on their next console for now and announce it with the console itself, thereby not giving Sony any time to react or do a 180 themselves.
If they plan physical even though they’d get an easy PR win right now over Sony, it would also give PlayStation a chance to change course.
I don’t believe this to be true but it’s a possibility, however unlikely!
@REALAIS Just done some follow up reading this morning and it definitely sounds like they are returning to the original style of D2. When they changed the game style up for D3 you had PoE come in a replace that old D2 style game play, and it was very successful. Now PoE 2 is carrying on and is still very successful so I think Blizz have finally accepted that ARPG fan don't want them to keep reinventing the wheel.
I did enjoy both D3 and D4 but I do hope they slow the gameplay down a bit for 5 as its all got a bit frantic. At endgame you barely even register what you are fighting because you spam over the screen at 100mph in a sea of particle effects.
@ilyn I dont believe gameplay speed will be slower. People seemingly enjoy more blasting in general. You can have slow gameplay in D4 aswell. Just crank up difficulty and you will run "slower". But somehow you will more likely go back for smashing monsters on "Normal" dofficulty, because you will want that sweet loot as much as possible.
They tried Open world and it didnt payed off as they tought. You cant have open world which would provide flexibility, not really. Instances rule for arpg. Seemingly same problem is with another type of game - Borderlands 4.
As an old school Starcraft fan, that cgi trailer got me hyped
Lets hope its actually a good game as well and doesn't end up just a flashy cgi trailer!
Diablo will obviously be on PlayStation.
I really want to be excited for Diablo. I loved Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 had actual colour. It was vibrant, everything popped, it made me want to engage with the game and actually grind. Diablo 4 was so brown, so flat, it felt like they lost all sense of the word colour. It's fine if they were going for realism and a raw gritty feel, but it's the kind of game that expects you to want to grind. I really tried to like that game, they even added cute animal packs that were literal backpacks carrying all kinds of critters, that should have spoke to me. It didn't.
I can't not see the future of Diablo as one big cash shop. I do have an Xbox and I'm not sure I'd want to play it there either. I'm more curious about Starcraft honestly, it sounds a lot like Age of Empires and Command & Conquer which I'm not great with but they are fun. I could be imagining it but I thought they had some ten-year Diablo 4 plan, now they are announcing a new game. Either way someone will be happy to see it and good for them, regardless of the platform.
But do I think it will stay on Xbox? @Number09 (I'm stealing this again, and I didn't see you in the weekend thread so I hope all is well) Not on your Nelly.
@Dragonaged fact, will ps6 contribute to the end? Seems like Sony might be a huge contributor to the end of an era in gaming at least at this point... Who would have thought....
I think it is almost guaranteed that Diablo 5 at least will be on PlayStation, what with it being a Live Service game, and past renditions having been on PlayStation.
As for the other two, I think they probably will be on the PS6, but I think that comes down to how successful the push into exclusivity is for Xbox. If the likes of Gears of War E-Day is successful as a console exclusive, then Starcraft may well also be exclusive. If E-Day is regarded as a failure (in terms of exclusivity) then I think that Xbox will return to being fully multiplatform.
Games simply cost too much to make these days, and if they are unable to recoup their costs by being exclusive, then the obvious solution is for them to be made multiplatform. Xbox, with its smaller install-base, and with Game Pass eating into first-party revenue, are already at a significant disadvantage when it comes to exclusivity, and so unless they can significantly grow their install-base, then they will have little option than to be a fully multiplatform publisher....
Agree with the article's assessment that if either will be locked up by Microsoft, it'll be StarCraft. But I think they'll both come to PlayStation, as they'll likely have a larger install base than Helix, having sown up the last two generations and having more gamers locked into their ecosystem. And even more importantly, if Microsoft keeps putting exclusives on Game Pass day one, they'll want to recoup some of the money they'll lose by doing that.
Diablo is a silly question, of course it will.
StarCraft is unlikely.
The real story of interest was the joy pad support for World of Warcraft, and the implications of that for consoles.
I do not believe that is an accessibility motivated feature for PC gamers.
@DiabloSSJ 2/3 years in advance is pretty standard for blizzard to show off games
Diablo V 2029 means the earliest will be 2030. I'm sure it will be on PS6. StarCraft, not likely. Maybe after a year or so. Microsoft holds the answer.
Most likely. Microsoft won't want to lose out on PS sales.
Diablo 5 hypes me a little, but 4 was a huge disappointment to me.
That Starcraft trailer was absolutely fantastic, but i doubt i will ever play it. i dont own a gaming pc.
Microsoft has no exclusives they are on PC so im never worried ether way. if I like what I see will get it from Steam.
I think they should just make these exclusive, but I feel Diablo will release like most of the series on PlayStation, but StarCraft may not.
It’s similar to Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5.. probably one will release and the other not.
Physint for sure won’t.
Not really sure I could bring myself to care about either honestly. Diablo 4 I was looking forward to, but the scaling made it feel like a wholly pointless endeavour with little progression value, and another first person shooter? I became bored of the whole genre 15 years ago.
The unanswered question given this is modern Blizzard,not the Blizzard that would cancel a game if it didn't meet their high standards, will be if this has any shades of a Starcraft Ghost or just be an Overwatch clone with Starcraft skins?🤔
You can be sure of a PC/Helix release...but whether if there's any current gen releases remains to be seen...Diablo tends to lend itself to releasing on as many formats as possible so still possible it could be a cross gen release with this gen unless there's a radical redesign.🤔
Must admit haven't picked/purchased Diablo IV since I let Essential lapse, thought about it on PC in light of things with current Sony management, but even there you have to choose between Steam vs Battlenet editions!🙄 And I have zero interest beyond solo mode anyways!😅 Still miss the forever unresolved Diablo III Campaign story as it is vs the Diablo IV grind & always online requirement...what will happen to it with Diablo V feels like a question given there's a ticking clock on the former now.🤔
I don't care I'll get them on PC as it's best with a K/M over 3 screens
why would anyone would like to play Starcraft on any other platform than PC (even if he doesn't have one).
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...