An ancient evil threatens to engulf Sanctuary in darkness, and new heroes have been called upon to face challenges the world has never seen before. Blizzard Entertainment has announced Diablo IV, the highly anticipated next entry in its genre-defining action role-playing series.
The newest instalment of Diablo was announced at BlizzCon 2019, where attendees were eager to be the first in the world to play a public demo of the game. Diablo IV draws players into a grim storyline and gives them the freedom to explore and forge their own path across the most expansive and intense vision of the world of Sanctuary—a bleak and shattered hellscape bereft of hope and beset by demons.
True to the franchise’s roots, Diablo IV will deliver visceral combat, gruesome monsters, an epic hunt for legendary loot, and endless playability and progression. Players will find a lifetime’s worth of adventure scattered across a land rooted in varied ecologies and inhabited by dangerous new foes. They’ll delve into randomised dungeons packed with unpredictable adversaries and unimaginable treasures. While continuing to fully support solo and coordinated party play, Diablo IV will also provide opportunities for groups of players to encounter each other in the same shared world—whether to tackle bigger challenges or possibly even slaughter one another in player-vs.-player combat.
“Sanctuary has been a home to Diablo players for more than 20 years, and it’s with our own deep passion for the series and a deep appreciation of the community that we announce Diablo IV today,” says J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re excited to be returning to the dark, quintessential Diablo gameplay that players love while expanding the world and story in new ways, and we can’t wait for more people to be able to experience it.”
In the new game, players will attempt to bring hope back to the world by vanquishing evil in all its vile incarnations—from cannibalistic demon-worshipping cultists to the new drowned undead that emerge from the coastlines to drag their victims to a watery grave. For the first time in the series, Sanctuary will be a contiguous, seamless landmass comprising of diverse regions ranging from the burning desert of Kejhistan to the verdant werewolf-infested forests of Scosglen.
At BlizzCon, Blizzard revealed the first three of Diablo IV’s character classes, all playable at the show:
- The Barbarian, known for their strength and brutal melee combat, utilises a new and more powerful system in battle, Arsenal, which arms them with the ability to carry and rapidly switch between four different weapons at a time by assigning them to individual attacks.
- The Sorceress hearkens back to their Diablo II roots and shapes the elements to obliterate their foes by impaling them upon jagged spikes of ice, electrocuting them with bolts of lightning, or raining flaming meteors from the sky.
- The Druid is a savage shapeshifter whose updated playstyle empowers them to fluidly transform between a werewolf, werebear, and human form to unleash the raw power of nature’s fury on the forces of the Burning Hells.
These three iconic characters honour the legacy of the franchise and exemplify how Diablo IV builds upon the series’ history by preserving the core Diablo fantasy. Players will be able to experiment and discover countless character builds through customizable talent trees and skills, a deep loot system filled with legendary and set items to collect, runes and rune word combinations, and even personalised mounts for traversing the open world.
Diablo IV is currently in development and will be coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Brave souls can seek out more information at www.diablo.com.