The Diablo 4 team will let us know about the latest Diablo game via a blog post. Among other things, they discuss the game’s testing, storytelling, open world, and multiplayer modes.
Diablo 4 has no release date yet, but the game is already being tested. Every quarter, the team behind the latest Diablo game releases an update. Game Director Luis Barriga brings the update which this quarter focuses mainly on ‘the Dry Steppes’ and testing them.
Playtest
In the past quarter, the Diablo 4 team focused on blocking the elements in the ‘the Dry Steppes’ area. That means they make the area fully playable, including the campaign content, open world elements, items, a PvP subzone, dungeons and the cinematics. This allowed the team to then play through that folder and discuss it with each other. During the testing, the world was not quite finished yet, so the team used parts on the map that were only blocked out. This means that gray blocks provide an image of the environment without the art being finished. After that it is a good way to test if something works. Otherwise, just discard the blockout and not a finished part. An example of blockout in Diablo IV can be seen below.
Open world
A great new feature in Diablo 4 is the open world of Sanctuary. So if you as a player want to take a break from the story quest, you can easily explore the world, craft or test your skills against another Diablo 4 player.
One of the most popular features among the open world playtesters was the Camps. These are important locations taken over by enemies. After you have cleared the ‘camps’, these camps become an outpost with NPCs and a waypoint location. Each camp has its own backstory for you to discover.
In such an open world it is also nice if you can travel a little faster, which is why the Diablo team is making mounts that you can unlock while playing.
Multiplayer
Barriga says that developing the right approach to multiplayer was a nice challenge. “Our goal has always been to develop a shared world with our games without making it look like an MMO too much,” Blizzard would like to point out that this is a philosophical choice and not because of technical limits. “We think the game feels less like Diablo and the world seems less dangerous when you see a lot of other players.”
Storytelling
Diablo 4 will focus more on conversations between the characters outside of the cinematics. During Diablo 3, there were only UI panels with the names and portrait of the characters. In Diablo 4, the developer is experimenting with choreographed cameras that zoom in more when NPCs are talking to each other.
In addition, the developers of Diablo 4 are making real-time cut scenes. At that point, the game takes control of the camera and views the scenes as a movie. The developer says in the blog post that this is only saved for the most important story moments.
Pre-Alpha
According to Barriga, even in these early stages of the game, the test team says that Diablo 4 is fun to play. “Of course we still have a lot of work ahead of us. We are not yet in an Alpha or Beta internship. We wouldn’t normally discuss our early milestones publicly, but without BlizzCon this year, we still think it’s important to keep sharing our process, ”said Barriga at the end. “In addition, this was a special milestone for the team, we now feel we have all the key ingredients to create a great Diablo 4.”
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