Path of Exile co-creator says he desperately wants Diablo 5 to succeed
The man behind Path of Exile says he desperately wants Diablo 5 to be a good game.
Chris Wilson, who co-founded Grinding Gear Games in 2006 and was lead designer on Path of Exile before leaving the studio in 2023 ahead of its sequel's release, made the remark in a new video on his personal YouTube channel, as reported by Video Games Chronicle. His exact words were: "I desperately want Diablo 5 to be a good game."
Wilson described himself as tentatively hopeful and cautiously optimistic about Blizzard's next entry in the long-running series. He said he wants it to succeed for the sake of the action RPG, a type of role-playing game built around fast combat, character builds and loot, and particularly the dungeon crawler, where players battle through maze-like levels in search of treasure.
That connection runs deep. Wilson said he started work on Path of Exile with friends six years after the release of Diablo 2, at a time when no sequel was in sight. The group wanted a new action RPG to play, so they decided to build one themselves. That project grew into a major series in its own right, one often mentioned in the same breath as Diablo.
He argued that fans of these dungeon-heavy action RPGs are now "content starved". There are simply not enough new games of this kind to keep regular players busy. A strong Diablo 5, he said, could draw fresh players into the genre as a whole, which would help every game working in that space.
Wilson also talked through two early details he had noticed. The first was the Diablo 5 logo, which uses black text on fire in the style of the Diablo 1 and 2 logos, rather than the look used for Diablo 3 and 4. The second was that Blizzard had considered releasing the project as an expansion for Diablo 4, a large add-on to the existing game, instead of as a full sequel.
What makes this stand out is the history behind it. Wilson did not start Path of Exile to walk away from Diablo. He started it because he wanted more of that kind of game to play.
His personal channel now carries interviews with other game developers, alongside his own commentary on design. This latest video continues that run, with a veteran of the genre talking openly about wanting a rival series to do well.
