Diablo 4 is currently undergoing through its Closed Beta, and as such, concrete information is finally emerging about its features, classes, and gameplay loop, with the information coming straight from Blizzard this time around and focused on Diablo 4's open-world approach. Like its predecessors, Diablo 4 is set in the world of Sanctuary, but unlike its predecessors, Diablo 4's game world is one large interconnected maze that players can explore at their own whim, closer in concept to the Adventure Mode introduced in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls.
The open world in Diablo 4 caters to all types of players, with the existence of featured Player vs. Player zones as well as eight-person world bosses scattered throughout the five playable regions, which are of a comparable size to an Act from past Diablo titles. However, despite the freeform experience of Diablo 4's open world, Blizzard is implementing another system familiar to Diablo 3 players: World Tiers.
In an interview with IGN, General Manager Rod Ferguson and Game Director Joe Shely discuss how World Tiers have evolved from Diablo 3's difficulty slider to provide Diablo 4's open world a sense of verticality and progression. Players can choose from the first two World Tiers immediately at Level 1, where the first tier is equivalent to a Story Mode difficulty. After Level 50, the World Tiers open up and players are able to gradually unlock further tiers by defeating World Bosses at their highest available World Tier.
As opposed to Diablo Immortal and Diablo 3's difficulty sliders, the World Tiers in Diablo 4 offer a more palpable sense of progression by locking the next stage behind boss encounters that effectively serve as gatekeepers. The developers went on to explain that the final World Tier would be locked behind a particularly difficult boss fight designed for Level 100 characters.
In a similar vein, Legendary items in Diablo 4 represent an evolution of the Kanai Cube concept introduced in Diablo 3, where players can choose to extract a Legendary power and apply it without having to use the original item. Unlike the Kanai Cube, players in Diablo 4 can transfer a Legendary item's power from the original item into a new Rare item of their choice. This brings back relevance to Rare items from Diablo 2, while not diminishing the importance of Legendary items from Diablo 3.
With Diablo 4's Closed Beta ending on November 18t players won't have a chance to test out these features until the start of next year, when Blizzard slowly opens up the Beta for more people. If rumors are to be believed, the game's release isn't too far away, as Diablo 4 is set for an April 2023 launch.
Diablo 4 will launch in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.