Diablo 3 released all the way back in 2012 on last-gen hardware. Suffice to say, Blizzard is excited and ready to take advantage of more powerful tech with Diablo 4. And one place where you’ll see considerable improvement beyond pure visual fidelity is animations, which go a long way in hack-and-slash action-role-playing games. According to Blizzard, a lot of new animation technology is being dumped into Diablo 4, which will feature a blend a variety of animation techniques. As a result, the movement will “feel very different than Diablo 3.”
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“We’ve added a lot of animation technology,” said Art Director on the game John Mueller while speaking to AusGamers. “Blending animation and having stop animations and having different animations make the movement feel very different than Diablo III. It’s all increasing the resolution. And in action it makes the movement feel more fluid, with stuff like character turns looking better than ever.”
For those that don’t know: Diablo 4 is using a completely new engine, and it’s using Physically Based Rendering on top of that, which means Blizzard will — basically — be able to render objects more realistic. As a result, textures should look a lot better. And there’s a lot of improvements like this that will be made possible via the new engine. It may seem like small improvements, but they add up. Diablo 3 was great, but it felt a bit outdated in certain regards, but it doesn’t sound like that will be an issue with Diablo 4.
Diablo 4 is in development for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and presumably next-gen consoles. At the moment of publishing, there’s been no word of a release date, however, Blizzard has noted the title is still in pretty early development. In other words, don’t expect to see it release next year.
For more news, rumors, leaks, media, and information on the game, be sure to peep all of our previous and extensive coverage of the title by clicking right here. Meanwhile, as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there.
