After announcing Diablo IV at BlizzCon today, Blizzard had a lot more to share than just a new RPG. Not only will the game see the return of old favorite classes, with new twists, but some major gameplay changes will alter the flow of how the game works.
Game director Luis Barriga revealed a bunch of new details about the upcoming RPG, including an extremely important change to the way levels are structured. Players will not only share the same shard, but will be able to directly interact with each other. According to Blizzard, “Diablo IV will provide opportunities for groups of players to encounter each other in the same shared world.” This setup will allow players to partake in various challenges together, but it seems like there’s more to this than Blizzard has let on so far.
And don’t worry if you don’t want to play in a shared world, as playing solo and party play will also be built into the game at launch.
Old Enemies And New Fun
This new world will be inhabited by new enemies too. The big bad in Diablo IV will be a name that many hardcore fans will know extremely well. That’s right ladies and gents, Lilith is coming back to the realm of the innocent and taking control. Lilith is the demonic child of Mephisto and is known to all of Sanctuary as the Queen of the Succubi. She was once the lover of angelic rogue archangel Inarius, her union with him led to the creation of the first nephalem. By the way, that’s the primary antagonist of the Diablo games at various points. Tying this plot thread back to the older games is a core component of how the developer is approaching the new game.
Blizzard has developed Diablo 4 with three main pillars in mind, darkness, world, and legacy. Each of these design elements evokes both past lessons and innovations of the future that are integral to crafting this new RPG. These elements also influence how Blizzard is designing world maps themselves, as each zone will have its own unique theme and lore as a backrop. This should help not only immerse the player, but give them a sense of purpose and direction through more open-ended progression sign posting.
Getting around will require some help though, as the game area is much larger this time around. To that end, players will be able to use full mounts for the first time in the franchise, speeding up travel time between zones. How this works in practice is still unknown, but given that we’re still a fair bit out, possibly years, from release of Diablo 4, we’ve got time to learn more. And yes, this means those leaks were legitimate.
