In an interview with IGN game director Joe Shely and Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson talked about Diablo 4's extensive testing, its end-game content, and live-service plans. Fergusson called Diablo 4 "the game that I'm sure was tested more holistically than unlike any other game I've ever been involved in," noting that the game was made available to all of Activision Blizzard and even friends as well as family members to ensure quality (even the friends and family test led to a 40-minute leak Diablo IV Gold).
Diablo 4(opens in a new tab) will feature an open world. But Blizzard hasn't been very precise about what it means. In a new interview with IGN(opens in new tab) Game director Joe Shely and Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson went a bit more in depth about what players can expect to find when they return to the Sanctuary. Sanctuary.
"One of the main concerns with making 'open' the form of a large neon sign and flashing that sign is that people get this idea that"the Breath of the Wild type of, 'Oh, it's totally natural and I can be anywhere and accomplish anything and then figure it out for myself'," Fergusson said. "That's not our reality. Our story is non-linear but there is a story. We were looking for a beginning with a middle and an end. We wanted to start at a specific place, and we wanted to end at an exact area."
Diablo 4 is "more of an evolving story," he said, and players are able to select the method of play in which they play through the main elements, and after that, play them in alternative order in replays to experience a different sort of experience as a result. Of course, there'll also be plenty of opportunities to explore other aspects and forget about the main mission in the event that you choose to.
"That's the good thing about the open world. There's lots of side-quests, there's a lot of things you can do that aren't included on the gold path" Fergusson said. "And the fact that the golden path is a branching pathway that you can decide when you'd like to make those branches and what order buy Diablo 4 Gold."