Rod Fergusson is leaving Blizzard Entertainment. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the general manager of the Diablo franchise. He announced his departure after five years at the helm, leaving behind a message that hints about Diablo’s future and expressed that he’s incredibly proud of what he’s built with the Blizzard team over the years.
However, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies because if you scroll down to that tweet or look up some reactions on Reddit, you might notice that it’s a bit of a “mixed reaction.”
The Man Who Can Be Moved
Rod Fergusson built his reputation as a “closer” in the video games industry. He’s the guy that you bring in when a game is stuck in creative development and your studio needs to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
He started his career at Microsoft back in the early 2000s, where he worked on Microsoft Train Simulator, and later helped bring Valve’s Counter-Strike to Xbox as it was already lagging behind schedule.
A few years later, he helped the once-struggling Epic Games push Gears of War and its sequels, and then moved to Irrational Games, where he once again took his “closing” talents to help the studio push Bioshock Infinite out of a decade of grueling development.
Fast-forward to 2020, and Rod Fergusson made his way onto Blizzard. Under his management, Blizzard was able to release Diablo II: Resurrected, Diablo Immortal, and Diablo IV and its Vessel of Hatred expansion.
That’s four major releases in only five years, which is something unheard of at Blizzard back then, because it used to be a company that was once famous for late releases due to needing additional time for polishing.
In his farewell tweet, Rod Fergusson announced his Blizzard exit, but expressed that “The teams are set up for success, with an exciting slate of releases ahead.” Whether he’s hinting at a new game or a new Diablo IV DLC remains a mystery.
It’s Good For Blizzard to Take a New Direction
The problem with releasing games and releasing “good games” aren’t always the same thing. Take a look at when Diablo Immortal became the poster child of predatory monetization schemes because they engineered a progression system that nudged players to spend more, and even up to $100k to max out all the gems that you can equip. It’s a horrible practice that’s designed to get the most money out of each player.
And to this day, I still remember the red shirt guy back in Blizzcon 2018 with the famous:
Is this an off-season April Fool’s joke?
After that incident, Blizzard has been able to dodge any more unfortunate connotations, and over the years focused on Esports, remasters, and the sequel to Diablo III.
To be fair, Diablo IV isn’t at all bad, but it’s not great either, and that is something that the studio needs right now more than ever.
Marvel Rivals has beaten Overwatch, and Path of Exile 2 just took out Diablo. It’s a studio that’s slowly suffocating in a creative slump, and my best guess is that they’re taking a course correction before they hit an actual wall.
As for Fergusson himself, he’ll likely land at another studio that needs help pushing a troubled project across the finish line, though we might want to remind his replacement at Blizzard not to add any more malignant tunnels.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
- Released
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October 8, 2024
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
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Blizzard
- Publisher(s)
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Blizzard
- Engine
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Proprietary
