Like blood from a severed jugular, you wait years for news on Diablo 4, and then you're covered in a torrent of it.
Following its announcement at Blizzcon, we officially know much of what to expect from the fourth entry into the veteran ARPG series, from its open world setting to its return to the franchise's gothic-demonic looks.
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As for how it looks in action? We've got a giant chunk of that too now, courtesy of 24-minutes of in-game footage from GameInformer (opens in new tab):
Beauty in the bloodbath?
It's, undeniably, more of the same – enter dungeon, click-to-kill ad-infinitum, loot, repeat, continue. But that'd be doing a disservice to just how addictive a gameplay loop Diablo's core idea is, and why it's spawned so many imitators.
Also, it'd be missing out on just how significant the return to a truly-gothic world is. Diablo 3, as much as we love it, looked to brighten up the Diablo world a smidgeon with colourful locales. But this is very much the graveyard-trekking adventure that Diablo fans have yearned for since Diablo 2 gave up its secrets.
The gameplay here is looking incredibly polished, but despite this, Blizzard says that release is many years away. Given the rocky start that Diablo 3 got off to, it won't want any such hiccups when Diablo 4 arrives, and so will likely be fine-tuning the loot balance and skill trees considerably for some time to come. Diablo 3 changed dramatically between its announcement and its launch, so don't be surprised either if Diablo 4 looks or plays markedly different whenever it eventually is released.
Diablo 4 will launch on PC, PS4 and Xbox One and, one would assume given the distant release date, PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett, too.
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