Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo 4 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC will drop another gameplay feature from previous games. As you may remember, Blizzard has previously confirmed other cut features, such as an offline mode. In other words, it hasn’t been doing itself any favors with fans. However, this one should sting a little bit less than some of the previous confirmations. In short, Diablo 4 is ditching Ancient Items. For those that don’t know: Ancient Items were introduced with the previous game — Diablo III — and were basically super rare legendary items that came with bonus modifiers. They were a big part of Diablo III’s endgame. However, they also weren’t that popular. Many thought they were grindy and the pay off wasn’t that great. If you were one of these players who thought this, well then this cut feature is actually good news. That said, the replacement doesn’t sound a great deal better.
In the place of Ancient Items, Blizzard is adding a consumable-like item that can only be had in the endgame. Basically, they will let you apply a random legendary bonus to a non-legendary item. You can read more about these affixes here.
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“We agree with the feedback that Diablo IV shouldn’t just mimic the itemization in our previous Diablo games,” said Blizzard while talking about making Diablo 4 unique from previous installments. “Our plan is to take the best parts of previous games and improve upon them while introducing new elements to make Diablo IV unique. We don’t want to create an exact copy of Diablo II or Diablo III. It’s worth calling out that, on this subject, there was a lot of mixed feedback and differing opinions, and we acknowledge that means there’s no single approach that everyone in the community will agree on.”
As you can see, Blizzard is well aware it can’t please everyone, which is why it sounds like it’s going to stick with its vision for the game, but also take in as much feedback as possible during the development process. Whether this will pay off or not, who knows. Only time will tell.
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 or even a release window. Anyway, for more news, rumors, leaks, media, and information on the game, click here.
Thanks, PCGamesN.
