Diablo 4 was officially announced at Blizzcon on November 1st, 2019, to the excitement of fans both long-time and new alike. This will be the fourth installment in a series with a more than twenty-year history, and as such, it has an enormous legacy to live up to in order to be considered a success.
The Diablo franchise has thrived largely on three pillars that will need to be upheld to satisfy both fans and critics: story, gameplay, and the community. If Diablo 4 is going to live up to the expectation of its fans, there are important aspects to each of these pillars the game must do its best to exemplify.
The Diablo Story
Diablo 4 is the next chapter in a very expansive story and the first foray into the world of Sanctuary since Diablo 3 was released in 2012. From its beginning in 1997, Diablo has had a story with the classic Blizzard touch of optional depth and brevity. Although it has been more than twenty years since players first battled Diablo, Lazarus, and the denizens of the Burning Hells, long-time fans of the series will most certainly have high expectations for the plot of the next game. And those same fans have likely dug into every hint about when Diablo 4 will release.
Diablo 2 built upon its predecessor directly, continuing the story of the Dark Wanderer. The unnamed hero of the original game had placed the Soulstone, a magical stone created by the Horadrim to contain the power of Diablo and the Prime Evils, within themselves and commenced wandering. Players in Diablo 2 found themselves dealing with the aftereffects of the powerful item and all the denizens of hell and heaven that gathered to take advantage of its power.
In Diablo 3, players found themselves embroiled in the return of the forces of Hell in now New Tristram, again heeding the words of series mainstay Deckard Cain. Eventually, the players learn that they have been deceived by the farsighted Prime Evil, Diablo, but alongside a now-human Tyrael, they are able to defeat the embodiment of evil in Sanctuary. The Reaper of Souls DLC then saw heroes (alongside the addition of the Paladin class) dealing with a maddened Malthiel, the angel of death, and his attempt to turn the Soulstone into a weapon capable of harvesting all mortal souls.
Over its long lifespan, the story of Diablo has remained a very consistent piece of storytelling that dedicated fans have long enjoyed exploring. Voice memos and scattered notes throughout all of the games help to flesh out minor characters and major cosmology alike, magic items give descriptions that hint at exploits of famous adventurers, and the well-written dialogue of the main campaigns all work together to create a canon that is as deep as fans want. Casual players can get the best version of a succinct and compact story about good vs. evil, while those that want to delve deeper are treated to an expansive lore with thousands of years of history to explore.
Diablo 4 has already set the stage to eschew its traditional villains with the reveal in the original release trailer showing that the newest entry will be focused on Lilith, one of the demons that broke away from the Endless War to create Sanctuary. And with most of the other Prime and Lesser Evils seemingly defeated by the end of Diablo 3, the franchise stands in rarefied position to create new threats and to explore other characters that had previously been sidelined by the more immediate threats of a renegade angel and the devil himself.
Gameplay in the Diablo Franchise
While it did not begin its development as the classic ARPG it is known for, Diablo ended up defining the isometric action-RPG as a genre for a generation. Mixing the stat-based obsession over min-maxing with all the best options available from traditional RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons and Final Fantasy with the moment-to-moment tension of action RPGs like Elder Scrolls and Devil May Cry, the Diablo franchise made a name for itself. This approach to mixing action and roleplaying elements has drawn both acclaim and admonishment from fans.
Balancing the two has never been an easy task, one that some would argue was best handled by either Diablo 2 or Diablo 3 depending on the player, and many players still argue about what classes merit a return to the launch of Diablo 4. Regardless of which game a player might consider the superior entry in terms of gameplay, Diablo 4 has a great gameplay system to live up to. Finding the right mix between the beautifully controlled chaos of Diablo 3 and the precise optimization of Diablo 2 will go a long way in determining how Diablo 4 is received by fans.
The Diablo Community
From its original release, the Diablo franchise has had a large focus on community. This is something common in Blizzard Entertainment games that lends itself effectively to the Diablo games. In Diablo and Diablo 2, there are zones within the overworld that are dedicated to PvP, while Diablo 3 had more of a focus on cooperative play with its matchmaking options. It had robust cooperative play both local and online that helped players old and new find groups of other heroes to battle against the forces of Hell in Sanctuary. Diablo 4 may draw from nostalgia in order to decide what features make it into multiplayer, perhaps building from what best suits fans.
Diablo 4 now has a lot to live up to in terms of balancing not just PvP an PvE but toeing the line between being an MMORPG or not. So far, it seems that players will encounter other adventurers online more along the lines of Diablo 2 but without moving into the realms of massively-multiplayer games from Blizzard like World of Warcraft. The developer has said that players will encounter others, albeit few, on their quests but not so many that the player feels like they are less the focus of an adventure. This precarious balance will be a huge part of how Diablo 4 is received, but even with everything known about Diablo 4, there are still many remaining questions. Hopefully, Blizzconline 2021 will answer at least some of those questions.
Diablo 4 has an enormous task ahead of itself, innovating and improving upon a tried-and-true formula without losing the spirit of the games that came before, but early glimpses (while fans wait for further Diablo 4 updates) definitely seem to indicate a bold and strong move forward for the franchise.
Diablo 4 is currently in development for PC, PS4, and Xbox One as confirmed platforms.