Fresh off the PR firestorm surrounding its suspension of a Hearthstone player for supporting the Hong Kong protests, Blizzard has finally announced the long-awaited Diablo 4 at Blizzcon 2019. We don’t have many details on the game, but the 9-minute cinematic trailer should get Diablo fans sufficiently hyped.
The Diablo franchise stretches all the way back to 1996 when the original game marked a significant advance in the hack-and-slash RPG genre. Diablo pioneered many elements of the modern RPG that we take for granted, and both sequels have proved to be major successes in their own rights.
For the uninitiated, the Diablo games take place in the world of Sanctuary, a realm created by an archangel for angels and devils who were sick of the eternal conflict between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells.
In the newest installment, players will face the archdemon Lilith, who arrives in Sanctuary in grand fashion following the bloody sacrifice of three unlucky adventurers in the new trailer. The trailer, which you can see above, is over nine minutes long and features no gameplay footage. Instead, it’s a startlingly high-quality 3D animated prelude to the plot of the game.
Following the cinematic trailer, Blizzard showed a much shorter gameplay trailer (below). Yes, it looks very pretty. It features just three classes: Sorceress, Druid, and Barbarian. There were many more classes in Diablo 3 at launch, and we expect to hear about more for Diablo 4 later on.
Blizzard’s director for Diablo 4, Luis Barriga took the stage at Blizzcon to talk about the game, but he didn’t get too specific. Barriga confirmed the grim style of the trailer reflects the full game. You can expect a darker, more sinister experience in contrast to the brighter style of Diablo 3. The game will take players to never before explored corners of the Diablo universe, and there will be special PVP areas of the game at launch. Combat has also been tightened up considerably compared to previous installments of the series.
Diablo 4 will launch on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 — sorry, no Switch version of this one. Blizzard doesn’t have a specific launch date in mind, but it shouldn’t be too far off. We’re getting on toward the end of this console generation, and Barriga specifically called out the current platforms.
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