The Diablo 4 development team shared some updates that they’ve added to the game in response to some of the fan feedback that they’ve received thus far.
At this time, it seems that most of the major updates revolve around the game’s UI and aesthetics. Specifically, Blizzard notes that they’ve altered Diablo 4‘s inventory screens to showcase a more realistic and gritty style. The brightness and saturation of items has been “toned down,” and the team has also added visual cues in the background which helps you to better identify its value at a glance. The team states that they hope to achieve a “gritty, realistic UI, while balancing ease of use” and that they’re still accepting feedback in this area.
Along those same lines, the Diablo 4 team says that all of the game’s monsters have been “reimagined” in a “darker, more gritty art style” in comparison to how they may have appeared in Diablo 3 (thus bringing this game aesthetically closer to the Diablo games of old). They also state that creatures have been grouped into “families” which share certain design archetypes. For instance, there’s a new Cannibal family of monsters who utilize melee combat and high speeds. The idea is that you’ll have to utilize different strategies to defeat them than you would have to if you are fighting a member of the Drowned family or another group.
The team also mentioned how they are now accomodating for certain console-specific requests now that they are developing a Diablo game for consoles and PC at the same time. Along with setting the action bar to the bottom left of the screen for console players and to the middle of the screen for PC players (at least by default), Blizzard is also giving PC players the option to play Diablo 4 using a controller. Speaking of controls, the team also intends to allow you to rebind more input options this time around. Blizzard is also working on greater support for couch co-op players through tweaks such as the ability for both players to easily access their UI screens independently or collaboratively.
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Overall, you won’t find any groundbreaking changes in the team’s list of recent updates. What is interesting at this time (or at least more interesting than UI changes) is that Blizzard is not only constantly updating Diablo 4 based on feedback but that they’re sharing the details of these updates as they go along. That’s not something they’ve always done a great job of in the past, and it’s actually kind of nice to think that we’ll be in the loop regarding Diablo‘s development well-ahead of its final release.
So far as that goes, Blizzard is still not talking about Diablo 4‘s possible release date outside of a comment which suggested that you shouldn’t expect to see it anytime soon.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.