Diablo 4 is darker than its predecessor, and better for it

Diablo 4This is very sad.

I don’t mean that the game makes me feel depressed when I play it, but that it exudes an overwhelming air of gloom. It is dark, and in some places, very cold. And the more time I spent in Blizzard’s dark, cold, and somber world during my weekend preview of next year’s biggest action-RPG, I felt a distinct sense of place — something I’ve never felt in a Diablo game before.

Diablo 4 It is a common, Diablo 3It takes a symbiotic approach to gaming, but it infuses it with sadness and hardship. I may be the one risking my life to slay the demons out in the cold, but the poor folks in town don’t seem much better off. Nobody is doing OK in this world, and that shines through clearly in the game’s opening hours.

Joe Piepiora interviewed me. Diablo 4’s associate game director, and Naz Hartoonian, the game’s associate game producer, Piepiora told me that Sanctuary was Diablo 4’s newest character. If you haven’t played the game, that kind of statement probably makes you roll your eyes. But after over 15 hours with the weekend preview, I couldn’t help but agree.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Diablo 4 begins with a cutscene that should look familiar to those that watched the game’s reveal at BlizzCon 2019. (If you didn’t, all you need to know is that it’s filled with shadows, guts, and gore — a far cry from the brighter, cheerier art style of Diablo 3).

My first time I gained control over my character was in an isolated cave. I had been hiding from the storm and hearing warg howls. The world seemed almost empty of life for the first few steps. After a while, I saw a deer running through the snow. Then, I was attacked and killed by a huge wolf. It was a stormy day and I managed to stumble into the small, poorly paved town of mud. They were terrified and had boarded me in. I found the men comforting me on the floors, while a man was muttering to himself. The small collection of hovels might seem safe — and they are in literal gaPlease send meplay terms — but there are clearly dangers lurking outside, nipping at the villagers as they attempt to live their lives.

After I got a quest from the townsfolk and went out to meet that madness, I couldn’t help but think how the game felt familiar to play, but it made me It makes you feel completely different when playing the game. I’ve never stopped to think about the NPCs in a Diablo game, let alone their living situations.

Blizzard has spoken quite a bit about wanting to bring this “darkness” back to the Diablo franchise. When I first heard this, I was afraid the studio would overcorrect with a game that’s comically edgy and over the top. But instead, Diablo 4 feels dark and medieval in a realistic, almost upsetting way which likely has everything to do with Blizzard’s reference material.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

“When we first started, the thing that I was really keyed into was this idea of, like, medieval fantasy and what makes dark medieval fantasy cool,” Diablo 4John Mueller was the art director at BlizzCon 2019. “It’s really grounded in our own history … angels and demons and mankind in the middle, this is not a new thing. In fact, we started when [the project], we were looking at a lot of medieval paintings and Old Masters paintings, because that’s what we wanted to bring forward. We weren’t looking at other video games, we weren’t looking at other movies. We were looking at, like, Rembrandts and we were looking at, like, you know, old religious paintings.”

There are certain moments that matter. Diablo 4’s opening hours where it feels like you are battling your way through an old religious painting, playing the warrior being smashed between the forces of heaven and hell. But it’s one thing to emulate the look of a painting and another thing entirely to emulate how a painting makes you feel — so far, Blizzard has managed to do both.

It is so strange to feel completely immersed in the Diablo universe after spending so much time with it. Diablo 3over the past 10 years. Jumping into the Diablo 3 version of Sanctuary, I don’t see the colorful demons or the backgrounds anymore, I just see The Matrix. I’m whirling death and destruction, my enemies are balloons filled with confetti. Their health will decline, while mine will remain steady. Play is what I do. Diablo 3, I don’t think about where I am or the world around me, I just think about the numbers going up.

I’ve never been sucked into the setting of Diablo the way I am with other AAA narrative games. That’s never been a problem; it’s not what I come to the series for. It’s not. Diablo 4’s opening hours, however, as I trudged through the frigid wastes of Sanctuary only to eventually be drugged and kidnapped by the same villagers who I thought were my allies, I was engrossed in the world around me, and eager to see how the story progressed alongside the progression of my character.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Now, if you’re a leaderboard-chasing Nephalim and all this talk about mood and story has you concerned: Don’t be. Diablo 4It is the Diablo that you are most familiar with. It’s filled with explosive abilities and demons popping all around you. Legendary skills give wild boosts to your abilities, and each class’ unique mechanics help you tear through demons just as efficiently as before. This is the key to your success. Diablo 4This is what made me pay more attention to the people around me. My brain never dissociated what I was seeing and doing so I could simply focus on slaying demons the way I do when I’m pushing Rifts in a Diablo 3 season.

After my preview, I’m extremely excited by the world of Diablo 4, and I can’t believe I’m here writing to you about how I’m pumped to see how the story of a Diablo game resolves. However, it must be said that this was just a preview, and I’ve only spent 15 hours in Diablo 4It is a far cry from the thousands of hours it took to create its predecessor. After a hundred hours, it’s easy to see how a game’s sense of place could fade into the background and be forgotten. So, perhaps, by this time next year, once I’ve beaten the hell out of Diablo 4, I’ll only be able to see The Matrix in that game as well.

We will, for now at least, be closer to Diablo 4’s launch, I’m excited to do more than just smash big, horned baddies in new and creative ways. Not only do I wish to find new evils to conquer, but also to enjoy the atmosphere in the air. It is possible to have a sense of wonder. Diablo 4This seems unnecessary in some ways. To be satisfied, all I wanted was an up-to-date version of my favourite ARPG. Just a little taste. Diablo 4Already, Blizzard feels like it has given me something that I didn’t know I needed.