![]() ![]() But it was also unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in a Diablo game. It was a fundamentally Diablo experience, filled with the chaotic, spell-slinging I’m accustomed to. The Barbarians run head first into danger, the Sorceresses hurl fireballs from afar, and my fellow Druids take turns rolling boulders into the beast and transforming into giant werewolves. The Nephalim panic, and everyone starts to do what they do best. A new beast is born, and it’s taking up a lot of screen real estate. The pit of ooze grows outward, and the camera zooms way out. We all wait for the timer on our screens to tick down to 0. Sorcerers, Barbarians, other Druids fill out around the pit. Around me, other Nephalim start to pop up. The organic mush of the ground has fanned out, and the middle of summoning circle is a pit of black ooze, swirling. When I arrive, the area I’ve become familiar with over my four sessions has changed significantly. I open it and start heading toward the pentagram-shaped summoning circle to the north. My map pings me that an event is occurring nearby. That is, until the world spits out a demon so fierce that I’ll never be enough to stop it on my own. And still, I feel the depression of the land around me. I move from demon pack, to event on the shore, to dungeon - never running out of things to do. The loneliness of Diablo 4, even with other Nephalim running through the world, is a big shift from Diablo 3. Hope everlasting Image: Blizzard Entertainment After spending eight years watching thousands of random, innocent villagers torn apart in Diablo 3, I could’ve never imagined a Diablo citizen’s death would affect me.ĭiablo 4’s tone is darker because you truly seem like the only slice of hope in a world that’s filled with evil. But I’ve thought about the man for a few hours now, wondering what happened. Maybe it was a demon or even a game bug that took him - this was an early demo after all. I didn’t see a bloody corpse, or a pile of gold I may’ve missed him giving me. But when the smoke cleared, and the demons were gone, so was the man. The man asked for my help, and I jumped to his aid - suspecting I’d probably only get some shitty boots for my cooperation. My second encounter with the man wasn’t as cheerful. Once, I successfully fought the demons off and he - like the woman before - threw some boots and money at me as he ran back to town. He wasn’t a super-powered Sorcerer, or a weirdly chunky Druid he was just a dude in some light armor. On two occasions, I ran into a man fighting a group of demons in the field, begging for my help. A day well spent.īut not all of my interactions were so successful. I brought some good into the world, and somehow didn’t scare this poor woman to death when I transformed into a super bear in front of her poor, mortal eyes. I felt good about what I’d done, like stopping someone from getting mugged in a Batman game. I was this poor woman’s only hope in this dismal land, and if I didn’t stop the demons, she’d die.īlizzard’s complicated history with China looms over BlizzCon 2019īut stop them I did, and she threw some gold and a pair of boots at me for my trouble. ![]() This interaction isn’t unique to Diablo 4 - in fact many moments like this exist in Diablo 3 - but the tonal shift from silly, gross gore to gothic nightmare changed how the small event made me feel. I’d been doing a good job of accidentally clearing out the beasts just playing Diablo my usual way: a tornado thoughtlessly steamrolling through goat men.īut when she begged for my help, I stopped and protected her. But it was usually the NPCs and in-game events that altered my experience most.Ī woman ran up to me, screaming about the monsters all around her. In my first three runs, I sprinted around the world, ignoring glowing exclamation points, and exploring random dungeons.Įach of these runs were different, as other players would weave in and out of my game, clearing some areas of monsters before I could get to them. In my four times through the Diablo 4 demo at BlizzCon, I only tackled the main story mission once. ![]() A world in need of hope Image: Blizzard Entertainment And that hope is, corny as it sounds, you and other Diablo 4 players. But unlike the cinematic, there’s a glimmer of hope in the world of Sanctuary. The world of Diablo 4 feels just as bleak in the game as it does in the BlizzCon cinematic. This isn’t going to be Diablo 3, where Wimsyshire, filled with literal rainbows and unicorns, lurks just beneath Tristram’s surface. From the first moment of the Diablo 4 trailer, Blizzard’s gruesome new tone was clear.ĭiablo 4 is some metal shit, a game filled with the spirits of Ronnie James Dio and Satan himself. At the BlizzCon 2019 opening ceremony, Blizzard finally unveiled Diablo 4 - the game players raged for during last year’s Diablo: Immortal debacle.
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