Blizzard explains how the Diablo 4 campaign will be adapting to the new open-world setting.
Game Director Joe Shely and General Manager Rod Fergusson have recently spoken with media outlet IGN to discuss the mechanics of Diablo 4 and one of them was the campaign. In previous games, the story was linear, which forced players to go through a certain order of locations and could only choose manually when they completed the story. In the upcoming title, it will be different.
Since it will be open-world now, players can now go to different locations. This has now led the developers to let players choose the acts to complete. The ending act will still be the same, but between the start and the end, players are able to complete acts in a different order. They can also complete sidequests in those major areas and other jobs. Blizzard can still hold the players’ hands and guide them through the campaign, but as an option now.
Shely also shared details about designing a balanced game world. He explained that the game’s philosophy is all about monster density. When players travel through the Sanctuary lands, players will enjoy exploring as it will feel exciting and will not have any dull moments. He does say that it will never to a point where there will be too many groups of enemies that will clutter up the screen, which will now make it hard to traverse. In the sequel, there will be mounts now, which will make it easier to travel through bigger areas.
Diablo 4 launches next year. It will be available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.