The Diablo IV team recently released a new developer update. A lot of fans are excited for this game and I can’t blame them. It’s looking great! In the update, the dev team talks about testing the game out in an area called the Dry Steppes, a bit of how multiplayer and the Open World will work, in-game cinematics, and a little more.
While talking about the approach to in-game cinematics, there appear to be a couple different ways this is happening. For big story moments, the team is developing real-time cutscenes where the moment is treated more like a movie. The other, more common, method for cinematics will simply have the camera zoom in on the characters and NPCs with some animation and dialogue from all characters. More complex conversations will have more deliberate animations. This is definitely an improvement over Diablo III in my opinion.
When it comes to the Open World, players will be able to find a little bit of everything in here. Exploration, PVP, and more. There will also be events where players are going to be able to participate in the event together (whether or not you’re in a party). It sounds like the developers are trying to control how many players you run into out in the world. They talk about seeing some in towns and on the road, but an increased number during the aforementioned events. They also mention how in dungeons and key story moments will be private and only include you and your party.
Honestly, I’m really interested how this all plays out. A lot of their multiplayer stuff sounds like things I’ve seen in MMOs, but the team is trying to make sure Diablo IV isn’t an MMO. What do you think of the new information in the developer update?