BlizzCon 2019 Diablo 4: Unveiled Panel Transcript

CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION

John: Super exciting. Alright. So how you look in a game like Diablo as you’re laying waste to the hordes of Hell? It’s pretty important. Don’t you think? you guys want more options for customization than you’ve had in the past? Of course, and we agree; and we’re offering levels of customization in Diablo IV, more than we’ve ever had before; and allow you to make that Barbarian of your dreams (that drove your dreams), and this is just a few options that we have here today in our demo to kind of show you what the appearances look like.

These are some concepts of also where we’re going with this, we really want to give you like kind of like a template, and you can build on that fantasy however you want. So if you want to customize the hair, the skin, the jewelry, the scars, the tattoos, those kinds of things; and we really wanted it like, we have a lot of these that we’re planning; and it’s something we’re really excited about. We think you guys will like it.

Luis: Aright, but it’s not just the appearance. The customization is at the core of Diablo; and what I mean with that is gameplay customization, and customization is back with a vengeance.

(Audience becomes excited)

We’re bringing back some ideas and new ideas, so we’ve become inspired from various games. So, we have a super happy. We’re a little nervous like: “Yeah, they gonna like it.”

We have a trifecta of customization options with talent trees, with skill ranks, and with runewords.

(Audience goes nuts)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out all the Barbarian, Druid, and Sorceress skills and talent trees in this menu; then come back to the transcript. Make sure to “Open in New Tab.”

BLIZZCON 2019: DIABLO IV CONTENT
1. Impressions & Gameplay Videos	2. Barbarian Skills & Talent Tree	3. Sorceress Skills & Talent Tree	4. Druid Skills & Talent Tree
5. Legendary Loot in the demo

Runewords, especially, we’ve taken inspiration from Diablo II, and given it a fresh new interpretation. You’ll get to hear all about it in our systems and feature panel tomorrow or if you check it out on the demo; but the way that it works, it’s super exciting. That’s no longer like a secret recipe, but a little bit more freeform with triggers and effects.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I took this from one of the Diablo IV demo gameplay livestreams:

We’re very excited to see the combinations that you come up with; but the message that we want to bring to you today is we want you to play the build that’s inside your head; not the build that I designed for you; but the build that you want to play; because we realized that (you know) your idea of a frost sorceress might be different than mine or John’s.

Another thing that’s new to Diablo IV is the sense of world. It’s a very big difference in how we’ve approached it from different installments. We’re coming at it from two angles: the fantasy and the gameplay. On the fantasy side, we knew we had kind of planted these seeds of the druid. We told you that he came from Scosglen, and we had shown little corners of Sanctuary that we knew you guys wanted to explore; but then on the gameplay side, we kept making a more or less linear game with Diablo before: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3; and you guys kept wanting to approach it in a more open way.

Jumping around, killing stuff, and not following the rules. So, with Reaper of Souls we created Adventure Mode to kind of give you guys a taste of that openness; and it was really transformative. That was a moment where we learned a lot about how the game could be played, and where we saw how you guys were approaching Diablo.

So based on those learnings, we are making Diablo IV open from the ground up. We’re making an open-world with a non-linear campaign so that you can be in charge of how you decide to level. If you’re the type of player that wants to take breaks between the story, and do some of the repeatable contents, explore a little bit, do side content, stuff like that… great.

If you’re the type of player that wants to experience the story uninterrupted, you can still do that. So, not only can you customize who you character is, you can customize their experience in Sanctuary.

NEXT: THE WORLD

BLIZZCON 2019 DIABLO IV: UNVEILED PANEL TRANSCRIPT
1. Intro	2. What is Diablo IV?	3. Classes	4. Character Customization
5. The World	6. Dungeons	7. Monsters	8. Legendary Items

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