Diablo goes dark.
Blizzard Entertainment
With Diablo IV, developer Blizzard plans for the game to be darker and bloodier than before. The action-RPG dungeon crawler made its debut Friday as the first new game announcement during the opening ceremony at Blizzcon 2019.
Diablo IV will include various elements from previous games, but will return to its original style.
“We’re going back to the franchise’s dark roots,” said game director Luis Barriga, who took the stage after the reveal. “We’re approaching this game with complete reverence, and we hope that it shows.”
The cinematic for the game shown at Blizzcon featured a group of travelers entering a sacred tomb. They find out they’ve been tricked to start a ritual that will summon Lilith, the apparent big boss for the game.
Following the reveal, Blizzard showed the first gameplay footage for Diablo IV, featuring three classes: druid, sorcerer and barbarian.
The three classes play like their iterations in previous games. The druid can transform into a bear or werewolfwhile also unleashing magic damage. The sorceress has big elemental spells and can transport across the screen. The barbarian can dual-wield weapons while kicking and doing flying leaps to smash enemies. The short clip also shows that bosses are going to be much bigger than in previous games.
One big change coming with Diablo IV is the open-world gameplay. In prevoius games, each chapter consisted of its own area with its own dungeons, but in this next entry, players will have five large zones to explore. The zones are so big that horses are needed to traverse across them.
Diablo IV will be available for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, but no date was given for its release.
Originally published Nov. 1, 11:36 a.m. PT.
Update, 4:08 p.m. PT: Adds more details.