Diablo 4 isn't heading to Xbox Game Pass anytime soon, says Blizzard. This comes after a Brazillian advert circulated online, saying that the latest Diablo title was "available now" on Game Pass. This led many to assume that some kind of promotion would be announced soon, possibly even before the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard acquisition goes ahead.
This has been thoroughly shot down by Blizzard Entertainment president, Mike Ybarra. In response to a tweet spreading the Brazillian banner ad, Ybarra simply responded, "This is not happening". It's not clear if he means this won't be happening before the Microsoft deal goes through, or if it's not even being planned for when (or if) the acquisition is approved. In any case, anyone who bought the game recently can rest easy - it definitely isn't coming to Game Pass anytime soon.
The ad in question seemed pretty legit, coming from the Brazillian site PicPay, which sells Game Pass subscriptions through its own service. If they were preparing for Diablo 4 on Game Pass, it certainly seemed that retailers were privy to information that we were not.
However, that's clearly not the case. It's possible that the banner was just a template made for a hypothetical Game Pass release, which was then accidentally used on the site.
Whatever the reason, Ybarra is pretty adamant that we shouldn't wait around for it to hit Xbox's subscription service. Admittedly, there would be little reason for Blizzard to do this prior to the deal going through. From all accounts, Diablo 4 is performing well, so Xbox would have to offer the publisher a pretty sweet deal to put it on the service at no extra cost. There could very well be a lot of lost sales to make up for.
With all that being said, we're also not likely to see the Xbox and Activision Blizzard deal go through anytime soon either. Not only was the acquisition outright rejected in the UK, it's also being held up in the US by a bitter legal feud with the FTC. It's very possible that the US will join the UK in turning the deal down altogether, forcing Microsoft to make more concessions if it wants to get the merger over the line. Even so, it would have to contend with Sony trying to stop the deal at any cost, as it has made it pretty clear it doesn't like the acquisition in any form that it takes and doesn't trust Microsoft in the matter.