Diablo 4 general manager says “never say never” to mini pets

Diablo 3 fans missing the presence of pets in Diablo 4 have been given a glimmer of hope, as Diablo’s general manager, Rod Fergusson, has hinted that there’s always a chance that they could be added to the latest game eventually. 

In an interview with TRG during BlizzCon 2023, we asked Fergusson if the team would ever consider adding mini pets again, to which he replied, “We’re a ‘never say never’ team.”

Explaining the decision to keep mini pets out of Diablo 4 in the first place, he said: “When we started out, we really wanted to establish ourselves in a very authentic way, a very grounded way. So we looked at, ‘Oh hey, what's really popular in Diablo 3? mini pets and giant wings, and all these things.’

“And we were like, okay, if you're going into a dark gothic world in Diablo 4, and the first thing you [do is] go into town, and everybody’s running around with pets and wings, it's not going to feel [like] that sort of scary, ‘Lilith has returned’ kind of moment.”

He then likened the game to a TV series, explaining that what a show might do in its 25th season can be vastly different from what it was back in season one. Fergusson stated that, once a show has already “established” itself, people “are willing to go along for the ride” if it does something funny. 

“We get the desire [for mini pets] and we had fun with those as well. We like mini pets, we like to make all that stuff as well,” he continued. “But we wanted to make sure that Diablo 4 as sort of the reemergence - the tentpole version of our franchise - was coming in in an authentic, grounded way that we could build from there. That's not saying we'll never do it, but it felt too early in season one.”

For now, fans will just have to watch this space, and perhaps busy themselves with the quest to uncover secrets about the mythical ‘cow level’, which the Diablo devs have been teasing again.

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