In order not to repeat Diablo III release failure and to avoid any miscommunication, Blizzard decided to talk a lot about the upcoming Diablo IV game. According to the news, the developers are going to share something called “Quarterly Updates” about the development of the game and the first one just went live. It focuses on Cannibals, PC controllers, and couch co-op.
Disclaimer: we’re only presenting a short version of this development update. In order to learn more in-depth details, be sure to hop on the official Diablo page and read through the latest post.
The biggest portion of the latest Blizzard update is about the UI of the game. Diablo III had a fairly unintuitive UI that was designed with PC players in mind, leaving console players or those PC gamers who wanted to play the game with a controller annoyed. Diablo IV tackles this issue from the get-go. The game will support controller use on a PC and will allow players to change their UI quickly depending on the user’s input device.
Another big feature is the ability to change your gear, skills, and talents simultaneously while playing on a couch with your friend. Diablo III had an annoying issue where only a single player could access its menus or inventory at the time leaving his friend waiting for its turn. It was time-consuming and immersion-breaking – overall a pretty big nuisance for those wanting to adventure via together via a single console. Diablo IV promises to solve this issue and rebuild the UI for local co-op in mind.
Lastly, the blog features a portion written by Candace Thomas, Senior Encounter Designer for Diabo IV. He began his portion of an update by introducing monster families and breaking down how it makes a “family”. Fallen or Drowned families from previous Diablo games were given as an example. Diablo IV will get a new enemy family – the savage Cannibals of the Dry Steppes. Cannibals are coming to Diablo IV with four distinct members, each with its own design and weapons. You can check them out here:
So that’s that for the first update. Blizzard‘s Luis Barriga who’s directing Diablo IV said that in the future updates game developers wish to cover a wide variety of topics. Fans are encouraged to ask their questions and express their opinions on what they want to learn more about the upcoming release of the game.
