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Blizzard say the Diablo series is “extremely poised” for more experiments like the shift to open worldOnce they’re done adding a million things to Diablo 4, anyway
Once they’re done adding a million things to Diablo 4, anyway
Image credit:Blizzard
Image credit:Blizzard
I do not greatly enjoy the playing ofDiablo 4, but I do rather enjoy its hellish setting, which I would characterise as a Warhammer table-top diorama dunked in a bucket of frozen offal. As such, I’m tickled gall-bladder-pink to hear that Blizzard consider the action-RPGseries “a wonderful platform” for different types of game, now that they’ve made the leap to anopen worldformat.
For the most part, said experimentation will occur in the course ofDiablo 4expansions - the first of which,Diablo 2 throwback Vessel of Hatred, will launch in late 2024, adding a new class to the game described as “never before seen in the Diablo universe”. But from the sounds of things, there’s scope for the “franchise in general” to evolve too.
“Diablo is known as a big dungeon crawler and we added this huge open world to it,” the developers observe. “That’s a pretty big evolution for the franchise as a whole and it’s a wonderful platform for us to continue to experiment with a lot more things.”
“You’re going to see some of that stuff happening in the seasons,” the assembled Blizzonauts go on. “The hope is that we take larger steps when we go into the expansions as well, so really it’s about creating a platform to do more. I think Diablo as a franchise in general is extremely poised to do that.”
The developers argue that there has never been more ways to play Diablo than right now, though I’m not sure the differences will be apparent to people who aren’t steeped in all things Sanctuary-related. “It’s been four years since we announced Diablo 4 at BlizzCon,” they told reporters. “At the time, there was sort of one game that most people were playing with Diablo 3.
“Today, there are four Diablo games that people can play with D2R, Immortal and D3 […] and D4. It’s been really cool to have the support of our team and Blizzard and now Microsoft in continuing to bring more and more Diablo to fans because there’s so much more we want to do.”
Personally, I would quite like to play a Diablo adaptation ofDungeon Keeper, featuring all of Diablo 4’s bells, whistles and oozing squidgy bits (if you are of similar mind, you might be interested in thisfan remake of the Bullfrog classic). Or alternatively, a Diablo slice-of-life management game in which I’m the vicar of some benighted Sanctuary hamlet, perhaps taking a few cues fromThe Shrouded Isle. How about you?
