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 as Diablo 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 quarterly Diablo 4 update, written by the new game director. Taking over the project is Joe Shely, who has been promoted from within the Diablo 4 development team rather than brought in from another part of Blizzard. Shely has been working on Diablo 4 since 2017. He started as Diablo 4's lead encounter designer and was promoted to lead game design in 2019. When he started on Diablo 4, he'd likely never have predicted he'd, four years later, be the project's game director.
Shely has been a part of the Diablo team going back further than the start of Diablo 4, too. He spent around three years working on Diablo 3, first as an encounter designer and then leading a team working on the Diablo 3: Rise of the Necromancer DLC. Prior to working on Diablo, Shely spent over eight years working on World of Warcraft. That includes working on encounters in The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria expansions.
While the quarterly Diablo 4 update 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" of Diablo 4 and that he's humbled to represent the project's development team.
Shely understandably makes no comment regarding Diablo 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 latest Diablo 4 developer 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 as Activision Blizzard is still in the midst of lawsuits, never mind providing recompense to victims still within the company. That's a burden that Diablo 4 and its new director will unfortunately have to bear.
Diablo 4 is currently in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.