After last year’s BlizzCon, followed by a year mired in controversy, Blizzard Entertainment managed to somewhat bounce back with several high profile reveals at BlizzCon 2019. One of those was Diablo 4, which sees Lilith returning to wreak havoc on the world. The game returns to a much darker tone and also makes several core changes compared to Diablo 3.
Some of those changes have garnered their fair share of criticism and discussion. In a post-BlizzCon letter, director Luis Barriga noted the overall positive reception of the reveal. He also said an update would be provided in February 2020 with quarterly updates planned for keeping fans in the loop.
“We’ve been taking this week to assess and discuss our takeaways from BlizzCon, and we love all the deep discussions happening around the art, features, systems, and world of Diablo 4. We’re also excited about a cool update we’re planning for you in February of next year. It will be the first in a series of quarterly updates where we’ll share behind-the-scenes looks at our progress going forward.”
However, Barriga noted that “one topic is burning hotter than the rest” and that was the loot. “We want you to know that we are having the same conversations about items and stats that you are having—whether on the official discussion threads or external sites, we read it all! Getting this right is at the top of our minds, and in the coming weeks our lead systems designer David Kim will provide a few clarifications, share some of his thoughts, and address some of your open questions. We hope you check it out and let us know what you think.”
Of course, Barriga didn’t mention a number of other topics like Diablo 4 being always online, embracing a shared world style of gameplay, microtransactions for cosmetics and much more. Blizzard has already confirmed that Diablo 4 isn’t releasing soon so there should be enough time for more details. We’ll see how the development team responds to loot concerns in the coming weeks.
Diablo 4 is in development for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Check out some gameplay of the Barbarian and Druid classes along with Ashava, a World Boss battle.
