Blizzard says millions still play Diablo 3 — here’s why that number is the point, not the proof

Blizzard is pitching ladder timing as the secret sauce that keeps Diablo alive

Blizzard wants you to notice one thing: players don’t leave the Diablo ecosystem, they move around it. Matthew Cederquist – credited as a Diablo Legacy executive producer – told Eurogamer that “there’s actually millions of people that still play Diablo 3,” and that Blizzard deliberately staggers ladder seasons across Diablo 3, Diablo 4 and Diablo 2: Resurrected so those migrations don’t clash. The iteration in Blizzard’s playbook is simple: if seasons don’t overlap, a player can chase a new ladder on D2R one month, jump to D3’s ladder weekends the next, and slide back into D4 without losing interest in the franchise as a whole.

Key takeaways

• Blizzard frames staggered ladder seasons as a retention lever across multiple Diablo titles, not just single-game stickiness.
• “Millions” of D3 players is a PR-friendly claim; there are no public cross-platform metrics to verify it.
• Visible trackers (Steam) show low concurrent D3 numbers on PC between seasons – the “millions” case relies on long-tail, cross-platform audiences and seasonal spikes.
• Other ARPGs now avoid calendar clashes (Last Epoch explicitly did), which suggests staggered seasons are becoming an industry default, not a unique Blizzard trick.

Why Blizzard is pushing this narrative

This is a smart message for a live-service franchise juggling three active entries. Acknowledging that players hop between Diablo games turns potential fragmentation into a selling point: instead of cannibalising one another, the titles form a relay race of seasonal hotness. It also reframes any headline that a single title is “dying” as a snapshot of season timing rather than a sustained failure.

Practically, this is easy to pull off. Ladder events are distinct moments of concentrated play; stagger them and you create multiple peaks rather than one ugly collision. Blizzard’s timing matters less as magic and more as logistics: fewer simultaneous updates, more focused community attention, and less pressure on shared support and marketing teams.

The uncomfortable observation: numbers are missing

Blizzard’s framing is reasonable. The claim that “millions” still play Diablo 3 is not impossible — count Battle.net accounts, console and Switch users, and seasonal churn and you can reach large cumulative figures. But the company hasn’t released cross-platform monthly active users, nor seasonal opt-in metrics to back that line. Public trackers like SteamCharts show Diablo 3 averaging roughly 5k-10k concurrent players on PC outside big moments, while Diablo 4’s PC peaks are an order of magnitude higher. Those figures don’t disprove Blizzard, they just show why the assertion needs context.

That’s relevant because a competing narrative has already been floating. Former Diablo lead Rod Fergusson said in March 2025 that Diablo 2: Resurrected had more players than Diablo 3 at that moment. Cederquist calls that a “fleeting state” — and he’s right that seasonal spikes can flip rankings day to day. But without transparent metrics, “fleeting” is a convenient explanation for PR and an unanswerable one for skeptics.

This isn’t just Blizzard — it’s becoming the playbook

Blizzard’s approach mirrors moves by smaller ARPGs. Eleventh Hour Games deliberately scheduled Last Epoch Season 4 to avoid clashing with Diablo and Path of Exile calendar events, explicitly citing the benefit of not forcing players to choose. Even marketing stunts — like Blizzard offering statue spots for the first 300 Hardcore Warlocks to hit level 99 in D2R Season 13 — lean into the idea of discrete, high-attention moments spread across the year.

The question Blizzard didn’t answer

If season timing is the retention lever, what’s the actual lift? I’d ask Blizzard for the hard numbers: how many players participate in multiple Diablo ladders within a single year, and what’s the season-to-season retention rate for Diablo 3 specifically? Without that data, “millions” is a headline-friendly gesture, not a utility metric developers can learn from.

What to watch next

• Diablo 3 Season 38 start date — does it overlap with D2R Season 13 or D4’s major patches?
• SteamCharts and other trackers during the next D3 ladder weekend — look for visible PC spikes that support Blizzard’s rotation thesis.
• Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred expansion (April 28, 2026) — a big D4 launch is the real stress test for whether staggered ladders preserve players across titles.

Blizzard is doing something smart: treating three Diablo games as a single ecosystem you rotate through. That can work — the devil is in the numbers. If Blizzard wants that claim to survive scrutiny, the company needs to show retention metrics that prove seasonal timing actually translates into returning players, not just recycled marketing language.

TL;DR

Blizzard says staggered ladder seasons keep players hopping between Diablo 3, Diablo 4 and Diablo 2: Resurrected — and that millions still play D3. It’s a plausible retention strategy and an industry trend, but the “millions” line lacks public data. Watch upcoming season start dates, Steam tracker spikes, and Diablo 4’s April expansion to see if the rotation actually holds.