Earlier this month, fans of Blizzard’s hit dungeon-crawling role-playing game Diablo III got excited when a tweet from the developer seemed to hit at a Nintendo Switch port. The studio quickly denied that the game was in the works, referring to the post as “a fun community engagement piece,” but it now appears this wasn’t actually the case.
According to Eurogamer, Blizzard is indeed working on a port of Diablo III for Nintendo Switch, though it could not confirm whether or not the game would be a “complete” edition containing the extra expansion packs.
With the runaway success of the Nintendo Switch since it launched a year ago, AAA publishers have been working to bring their library of games to the system. Bethesda was among the first to do so with games like Skyrim and Doom releasing last autumn, and Ubisoft even announced a port of its extreme sports game Steep.
The last time a Blizzard game released on a Nintendo platform was all the way back in 2003, and that was a series of ports for the Game Boy Advance. These included the action-adventure shooter Blackthorne, which originally released back in 1994.
Recently, Blizzard has shown interest in consoles again following years of PC and Mac exclusivity. Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, and due to the game not requiring an online connection on those platforms, they’re arguably better versions of the game than their PC counterpart. Of course, Overwatch also released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at the same time the game released on PC, but director Jeff Kaplan said it would be “very challenging” to get the multiplayer shooter running on the Switch. Diablo III shouldn’t face this problem, considering that the game is already nearly six years old.
After releasing a new update for the ancient Warcraft III, Blizzard also got fans wondering if a remastered version of the game was on its way. No announcement has been made yet, but the real-time strategy game paired with the Switch’s touch screen seems like a match made in heaven. Given that the Switch is also capable of cross-platform play, it would likely have a sizable multiplayer community, as well.
