Diablo 4 Quarterly Update Talks About Asset-Creation, Storytelling, And The Open World Map
The Diablo 4 dev team has just released their quarterly developer update and it’s chock full of information about the upcoming game. In the latest update, Game Director Luis Barriga talks about the process of creating in-game assets, storytelling, and the Dry Steppes zone which was the focus of their most recent playtest.
“For our most recent milestone, we focused on blocking in all the elements in a region known as the Dry Steppes, complete with campaign content, open world elements, itemization, a PvP subzone, dungeons, and a cinematic to cap the completion of the region’s narrative,” says Barriga. “The Dry Steppes is just the region where we made a concerted push to create a complete and cohesive experience that we could draw observations from.”
Barriga also went into detail about the game’s open world setting, a first in the Diablo franchise. “One of the main new features we are bringing to the Diablo series is the open world of Sanctuary,” he explains. “So, while you can concentrate on the story campaign and work through that, we have a variety of open world systems and pieces of content that you are also discovering along the way. If you want to take a break from the main campaign and go exploring, crafting, or PvPing, you are free to do so.”
Another new feature is the addition of Camps. These are important locations that have been overrun by enemy mobs. Reclaiming the camp will turn it into a friendly outpost with a waypoint and various NPCs. Each camp also has a backstory that gives players a little more motivation to clear them out apart from killing mobs and getting loot. “For example, one of the camps in the zone was a town afflicted by a curse that turned villagers into piles of salt. Another was a crypt, haunted by a spirit that possesses the bodies of various undead—jumping from skeleton to skeleton until you defeat him.”
Barriga concludes the update with a summary of what they learned during the playtest. “The overall feedback from the team was that even at these early stages, Diablo IV is very fun to play. [. . .] Of course, we still have a lot of work ahead of us and to be clear, we are not at an Alpha or Beta stage yet. We don’t typically discuss our early milestones publicly during the course of development, but we think it’s especially important to continue to share our progress during a year without a BlizzCon. Also, this was an important milestone for the team, as we feel it corroborated that we have all the key ingredients for a great Diablo IV (of course, we’ll continue to seek feedback and iterate as we drive to completion).”
We've included the Diablo 4 official gameplay trailer below just in case you missed it. You can also head over to the official site for more info.
