Plus ‘hundreds of legendary items’
The veil has been lifted from the “mystery panels” at BlizzCon, and following the opening ceremony, Blizzard is leading with what is arguably the biggest news out of BlizzCon: Diablo IV. The project was allegedly “held back” from being shown off early at BlizzCon 2018 in favor of the tumultuous Diablo Immortal mobile gambit, and now we’re getting a proper reveal with a full cinematic trailer and gameplay.
Although they couldn’t really get into it in detail during the opening ceremony, thanks to the panel we now know that the latest iteration of Diablo is far more ambitious than past entries. For starters it features a “non-linear campaign,” that has a shared open world with five regions. Blizzard claims that there will be “hundreds of dungeons and legendaries” in tow, which inspired a cheer from the crowd. The development team is “leading into legendaries” and stepping away from sets (good) for more build variety.
The barbarian, druid, and sorceress are the first three confirmed classes, and will feature both gender options like Diablo III. The development team acknowledged that they pissed a lot of people off by not including the druid in Diablo III, and this time he’ll keep his companions (like the raven and wolves), as well as magical elemental abilities and shapeshifting. The latter will be done seamlessly, and mid-swing you can transform into a new form. Blizzard is calling it an evolution of everything they’ve learned so far from Diablo‘s combat systems. Talent trees are in too, as are mounts and the ability to waypoint travel.
In theory this is a slam dunk. It’s using all of the good mechanical upgrades from Diablo III and then some on top of the “dark” theme everyone wanted from Diablo I and II. It’ll be really interesting to see how it stands up against Path of Exile, the current king of ARPGs. The key? Keeping it updated and relevant for years on end, like Grinding Gear Games has for Path of Exile: which is still free, by the way.
PC, PS4, and Xbox One are confirmed, but there is no release window. “Not even Blizzard Soon (TM)” is a direct quote from the panel.
