When it comes to gaming, 2023 really has something for everyone. For Harry Potter fans, Hogwarts Legacy has just released to rave reviews. For Nintendo fans, the Metroid Prime remaster has just been shadow-dropped. For Star Wars fans, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is right around the corner. And for RPG fans, Diablo 4 is finally set to release in just a few months' time, though its slated release date doesn't put the game in an ideal position.
Announced all the way back in 2019, Diablo 4 finally received an official release date during the 2022 Game Awards, where the game was slated for a June 6 2023 launch. As things currently stand, June is a pretty open month for games, with just a handful of big releases currently slated for the month. That being said, one of those releases is another huge RPG, and Diablo 4 might have a battle on its hands.
Diablo 4 Might Go Head to Head With Final Fantasy 16
Diablo 4 is currently slated for a June 6, 2023, release, coming just 16 days before the launch of Final Fantasy 16. While the two games obviously have their clear differences in terms of gameplay, story, and tone, both are big RPGs, and both are highly anticipated sequels. For Diablo, it's been over a decade since the last mainline release in the series, and for Final Fantasy, it's been about seven, not including the Final Fantasy 7 remake. Both of these sequels have a lot of hype going into them, and the sheer scale of each game makes it difficult for fans of both to sink the required hours into each.
Fans of both Diablo and Final Fantasy may need to make the difficult decision in June of which sprawling RPG they sink their hours into, and that's a shame for all parties involved. That being said, Diablo 4 does launch right at the start of the month, and eager fans of both franchises could probably finish quite a bit of its core content before Final Fantasy 16 even comes out, though not every fan will be able to do this.
What also muddies the water a little bit is Final Fantasy 16's exclusivity. A big controversy about Final Fantasy 16 right now is its PlayStation 5 exclusivity. While some fans believed that this exclusivity would be timed to just six months, Square Enix has been a little obtuse on this exclusivity window, with the game's producer even making some comments about how true fans would just buy a PS5 to play it. Diablo 4, on the other hand, is releasing for every platform under the sun, from PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, all the way down to last-gen systems. This, naturally, could mean that Diablo 4 manages to pull in an even wider audience than Final Fantasy 16, as those without a PS5 physically have no way to play the game for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it's always possible that at least one of these games gets delayed. Out of the two, it's probably more likely that Diablo 4 would be pushed back by a few months, with reports in December 2022 stating how the development team was struggling to hit that June release date, even with extreme amounts of crunch. A slight delay for Diablo 4 may actually be a smart move from all perspectives, giving the developers enough time to polish the game to perfection while also clearing the game from an RPG-heavy June.
Diablo 4 launches on June 6, 2023, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
