“It’s meant to last a long time.”
I came away very impressed.
But what I did see, I liked.
In short, it feels like a generational leap forwards for Diablo, as it should.
But there’s plenty of other chatter besides.
Diablo 4is due for release 6th June 2023.
Eurogamer: Thank you for inviting me into the game, I’ve been enjoying my time with it.
But Diablo 4 seems like a much slower build.
It takes its time to do that.
Joe Shely:Yeah, it is.
We built a huge world with this game, and not just narratively but in our design.
It’s meant to last a long time.
Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that with the skills around the characters.
It’s more complex than I can remember in any other Diablo.
There’s lots of space.
How much of the world are we seeing in this build - what chunk of the whole?
I presume there probably is.
Joe Shely:Yes.
Usually, the World Bosses show up a little bit later but we added one to this build.
It shows up somewhat rarely though.
so you might not see it.
I’ve been enjoying the challenge, though.
It really feels - obvious statement of the year - like a new thing.
Joe Shely:Certainly every single asset in the game is brand new.
The engine is new, it uses physically-based rendering; the models are all super-high res.
There are no assets at all in the game from previous versions.
I really enjoyed the character customisation.
I noticed the characters didn’t seem to be gendered.
Did I interpret that correctly?
[They nod yes.]
Okay and why is that - was that a deliberate choice?
Joe Shely:Yeah.
But in Diablo, we make different human bodies for all the classes.
It was nice to see lots of different skin tones, skin colours, as well.
So one time, you see a white Barbarian and the next time you see a black Barbarian.
One thing I noticed when logging into the game is there’s an online queue thing there.
And obviously there aren’t many people playing this demo so the queue was nearly non-existent.
How are you going to mitigate against queues when people flood in?
you’re able to’t play - sorry!'
[he laughs].
So we’re testing that and so that’s why you’re seeing it in the demo.
That’s what we’re working toward.
Something I’m concerned about - maybe because of what happened with Diablo Immortal - is the in-game shop.
Can you tell me what exactly is going to be sold in the game’s shop?
But yes, it is a cosmetic-only shop.
You’re going to see lots of different things like armour, armour-visuals for your character - cosmetic armour.
We plan to have a variety of those kinds of things.
If you check our August blog, it goes into a lot of detail.
Joe Shely:It’s a boxed product, yeah.
Did I hear that correctly?
Joe Shely:Yes.
So the launch of Diablo 4 is just the beginning.
But presumably this is a paid thing that works in a similar way to, say, Overwatch 2?
Joe Shely:Absolutely.
The Season Pass is a companion to the season itself.
I heard you talk in the presentation about couch co-op.
I love couch co-op and love that you’re doing it.
How exactly is this going to work?
Adam Jackson:We do support couch co-op.
And is that for two people, or…?
Joe Shely:Two-player couch co-op, yeah.
Adam Jackson:We don’t have the concept of Rifts.
We do have other endgame activities that borrow some similar ideas from Rifts.
So we’ve learned lessons from that idea.
I was just reading up about some of these actually.
Something I had an itty-bitty question about was about Aspects in the game.
I wasn’t quite sure how they worked.
But when you imprint, you get the worst version of that.
Legendary powers roll in a range of how strong it’s going to be.
This [an Aspect] gives you the lowest power version.
Adam Jackson:Oh there are all kinds of upgrades there.
Joe Shely:So yes, there are.
There’s a system that we have called Whispers.
And the heads have a variety of tasks that they would like you to do.
Joe Shely and Adam Jackson, thank you.
