The first Activision Blizzard title to come to Xbox Game Pass will be ‘Diablo 4’.
Microsoft’s acquisition of the company was finally approved in October 2023 after being announced in January 2022, in a deal thought to be worth £50 billion, and now the first of the new owner’s franchises is coming to its subscription-based Game Pass service.
Head of Xbox Sarah Bond confirmed the news during an official Xbox podcast, saying ‘Diablo 4’ will be available to play via Game Pass from 28 March.
It is said to be the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed titles coming to the service.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced Game Pass now had 34 million fully paid subscribers – a rise of nearly 10 million from 2022.
The service has apparently seen “significant growth” from PC and cloud gamers, with Phil adding: “When there’s a fixed number of console players on the planet, you’re not going to grow Game Pass forever by shipping just on consoles.”
The past few months have seen speculation Xbox would be rolling out Game Pass to other consoles – rumours which were fuelled by Xbox chief financial officer Tim Stuart saying the firm wanted the service on “every screen” that “can play games.”
Announced at BlizzCon in 2019, ‘Diablo 4’ sees players create a character from one of five playable classes – Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue, or Sorcerer – and use their skills to complete quests through combat.
Staple features have returned from previous installments in the franchise, such as a focus on loot-collecting character-building.
