Whats going on guys, Vulkan here and today we have some massive news for Diablo 4! During today’s Xbox showcase, we got a brand new look at Diablo 4 running on an Xbox along with the final class and a release date. There is tons to cover, so let’s get into it.
First up, let’s get the two big reveals out of the way. The Necromancer is the final class and with it comes some new skills and I know lots of folks are going to be happy about a summon class – Blizzard is doing a deep dive into the Necromancer in their quarterly update – I’ll have a video overview once it’s out.
Oddly enough, there is no holy class in the game, wonder if that means we will see one down the line or if this has story implications. Anyway, we also learned that the game will be launching in 2023.
But when in 2023?
Historically, Blizzard has preferred releases in the first half of the year, with Diablo 1,2, and 3 all launching before July. While you have some more supporting evidence with Starcraft 1 and 2 both launching before the Fall as well. World of Warcraft is really the only title that has traditionally launched September or later – So maybe this means we’ll see Diablo 4 in the first half of the year? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything and we will have to wait until holiday 2023. Right now it’s anyone’s guess. But hey, at least we are getting it next year.
Before we dive into everything else that was revealed, I want to share this tweet from Adam Fletcher, the community lead for Diablo:
Diablo 4 is coming out as a full price game built strictly for PC and console audiences. The game is huge and there will be tons of content after launch for all players. Paid content is built around optional cosmetic items and eventually full expansions. We will be sharing more info soon.
Now, going off the previous Wyatt Cheng interview where he played games with semantics to make it seem like Immortal wasn’t full of horrible MTX, I’m going to take this tweet with a dump truck of salt. But if this is accurate and reads as it should, then we can assume that Diablo 4 will be more standard in the industry with skins and DLC being the only things available in the store. I’m all for this. I mean, this is exactly the way releases should be in today’s market. So let’s keep our fingers crossed for that.
Okay! Back to the reveal and all the details.
So the first thing they shared was the fact that players will have choices to make. There isn’t a single way to play the game, which I’m assuming means we can explore and stumble upon multiple things like side quests, world events, treasure troves, etc while we are working our way to main story objectives.
They split this up into a few different categories, starting with Character customization. You will be able to create the hero of your dreams! Have the Barbarian, rogue, druid, sorceress, or necromancer you’ve always wanted instead of settling for the default one. I’m always a big fan of intricate character creators, so this is a win.
Next, they dive into exploration.
Throughout the world of Sanctuary you will see demonic bastion’s known as strongholds. These are locations that demons have claimed for themselves and it casts a shadow of darkness on the area.
You can clear out these stongholds, which will bring a permanent change to these locations and repopulate them with non-demonic life, plus you earn some nice loot along the way. But that’s not all, clearing out these strongholds may also reveal new dungeons to explore and other hidden experiences that they didn’t go into. But they did say that the game has 150 detailed dungeons for us to clear out.
On top of these strongholds, there are also local events that will spawn for you to complete solo or with a team – including World Bosses roaming the landscape. And this plays directly into the shared world they talked about today. You will be able to see other players out in the world of Diablo 4 and team up with them near world bosses and random events. I’m not sure if you will always see them roaming the overworld or if you will only see them in hubs and near events. But we’ll have to see.
If you like PvP, they talked about fields of hatred, which are areas where you can kill other players! If you kill enough, you will be marked as a champion on the map and other players can kill you for loot rewards.
Lastly, we get a glimpse of endgame, which is what I’ve been very curious about since Diablo 4 was revealed.
When you complete the last mission in Diablo 4, you will unlock Nightmare Dungeons. These are transformed dungeons with added difficulty through new objectives and afflictions to the dungeon. I’m guessing these will be similar to rift modifiers we’ve seen in the past.
Next, they mentioned the Tree of Whispers, which is an endgame system that will provide you with cycling world objectives and bounties that reward you with legendary gear, xp, crafting materials and more. This sounds similar to the Codex we saw in Diablo 4 minus the battle pass. More like a series of refreshing objectives to keep you busy and encourage you to keep playing and progressing. Like dailies.
Lastly we have the Paragon Board. This was something that they revealed last year and it gave players a form of progression by finding new boards to link together all with nodes that give bonuses.
All in all, this was a great update, but the real star is the tweet from Adam Fletcher. Without that, many would assume this game may be full of microtransactions like Diablo Immortal and write it off. But if that statements holds true, we might be back on track with Diablo 4.
What do you all think?