‘Diablo III’ PVP Still Coming, But Without Team Deathmatch

Diablo III has been out for a little over half of a year now, and Blizzard has yet to release the promised “PVP patch.” In a recent blog post Blizzard assured fans that the feature is still coming – or at least some of it is.

In the post, Diablo III game director Jay Wilson said that the developer has decided to scrap Team Deathmatch. For now, the only PVP that Diablo III fans will be getting is the dueling feature, which is scheduled to arrive in patch 1.07 shortly after the new year.

When Blizzard showed off Diablo III‘s PVP mode ahead of launch, we saw a Team Deathmatch mode that allowed players to take their characters, team up with a friend, and do battle against other players in arena-style maps akin to the ones from World of Warcraft.

So why, then, is Blizzard holding back on releasing Team Deathmatch? As Wilson explains in the post, one of the reasons is a lack of depth.

“Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly. We’ve brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn’t feel like it was something they’d want to do beyond a few hours. Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they’d want spend a lot of time in.”

There is a bit of good news, fortunately. Wilson went on to explain that Blizzard hasn’t given up on a fleshed-out PVP mode – they’ve just gone back to the drawing board.

“We are going back to the drawing board on a new replacement for Team Deathmatch, something that feels more appropriate for Diablo III,” Wilson explains. “And as we stated previously, regardless of when we release it, it’ll be a free addition to the game. Team Deathmatch provided us with the foundation that we needed and served us well. Hell, it may even still be added in some form in the future.”

“For now, though, we’re going to first be looking at new modes that play up to the strengths of the character classes, focus on objectives beyond just defeating other players, and possibly even integrate PvE elements and rewards.”