Of all the things that should warrant prolonged discussion around Diablo 4 – like reports of crunch – it’s respec costs which are hogging the spotlight. After series GM Rod Fergusson tweeted that respeccing isn’t “prohibitively expensive,” associate game director Joseph Piepiora recently they’re a “bit expensive.” Costs are also final, as the game heads into launch.
Speaking to GamesRadar during a round-table interview, Piepiora revealed that “Players earn a significant amount of gold once you start getting into those high levels where those respec costs begin to climb, but the respec costs are final. We have them for launch, and we’re not planning on removing respec costs. We think they play an important role in asking players to start to harden up their build a bit once they get to that portion of the gameplay.
“It is a bit expensive, but it’s not the sort of thing where you simply can’t achieve it. You will naturally have earned a great deal of gold by the time you reach that stage of the game, and this is a way for you to spend some of it if you choose. But we do want players to feel that there are important decisions they’re making along the way that feel like they’re – not permanent, they can always back out of these things – but they’re intentional.”
So while it doesn’t seem like it’ll be “too expensive to undo everything” as Fergusson initially claimed, you can expect some cost. Of course, Blizzard will be looking at feedback post-release.
“We’ll always be looking at data, and we’ll be considering the feedback that we’ll be getting post-launch. We want players to get a chance to experience the system and see what it feels like rather than seeing screenshots that might seem a little absorbent initially. And then we’ll take a look then,” said Piepiora.
Diablo 4 launches on June 6th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC, with Deluxe and Ultimate Edition owners receiving early access on June 2nd. While details on the endgame, from Paragon Boards and Nightmare Dungeons to Helltides and World Tiers, have been discussed, Developer Update livestream on April 20th will offer even more. Stay tuned in the meantime.