Thursday 13 September 2018

Diablo 4 – When Is It Coming Out?


There have been rumours circulating for years around the mythical Diablo 4, and for the first time ever, we may have some real evidence that a sequel may be coming out within the next few years. While there haven’t technically been any official announcements from Blizzard regarding a new Diablo, the current state of affairs with Diablo 3 paint a promising picture for those who have been waiting almost a decade for a new game. 


Blizzard’s First Announcements
The first sign came in the form of announcement made by the Developer, where they revealed that Diablo 3 would be making its way on to Nintendo’s console, the Switch. It’s to be a complete version of the game, meaning it will be released on the console inclusive of all the accessories, including expansion packs and DLC. It’s good news, and provides a new system for players to enjoy the game before they turned to Diablo 3 to sate their thirst for a few hours in a Rift.


What We Know So Far
A few social media posts from Blizzard cemented the fact that a new project was in the works. In a Tweet posted on the 8th of August, community manager Brandy Camel stated a number of updates, and what’s been going over at the developer: “Stay awhile and listen, we have exciting updates to share about the future of Diablo” the Tweet said. That kind of message is as exciting as winning big playing pokies online!

Not long after, a video was uploaded that contained some more information that retained Blizzard’s usual vagueness, but enough to point to a possible sequel coming out in the future. Camel said in the video that the “forges at Blizzard are burning hot” and that the developer has a number of Diablo projects are currently in the works.

“Some of the them are going to take longer than others, but we may have some things to show you later this year. We hope you stay tuned while we work to bring these new Diablo experiences to life,” it was explained at the end of the video.

Diablo 4 Speculation
Judging from what we’ve seen from the 3rd instalment, the fourth game would likely pick up where Diablo 3 left off, lore-wise. We can at least expect a number of new classes along with the traditional ones (which will probably have a series of new names and enough tweaks to make them unique, but a wizard will always be a wizard), and most likely a packed end-game experience, especially as the Rift system in Diablo 3 proved to be its most successful feature.

Graphics and performance wise, it’s far too early to tell, but it seems most likely that they would turn to Unreal Engine 4, it’s a powerful engine that can run extremely well on just about every platform imaginable, and the go-to engine for most developers for future projects.