In an interview with AusGamers, Blizzard confirmed that Diablo 4 will be using a new game engine. While the team did not reveal any specific details, it did state that the game now uses Physically Based Rendering.
What this means is that the team can render things in a more realistic way. In other words, metal, skin, blood, fur, or hair will now look way more realistic than before.
Furthermore, and thanks to this new engine, Blizzard can now experiment with the top-down/isometric viewpoint. As such, the team can now have real-time cut-scenes, during which they can use the camera in a more cinematic way. The camera can also automatically zoom out during World Bosses so it can show a larger area.
Another area from which Diablo 4 will benefit from its new engine is its dynamic weather and the day-night cycles. As Diablo 4’s Art Director John Mueller said:
“When you cast Cataclysm [as the Druid], no matter what is going on in the world it brings the rain and storms with it. Having the ability to dynamically change weather based on abilities is fun because there are a lot of things that we can do with that.”
Lastly, Blizzard was also able to improve environmental destructibility and the game’s animations thanks to the new engine. The game will now feel smoother thanks to some new animation techniques.
“We’ve added a lot of animation technology. Blending animation and having stop animations and having different animations make the movement feel very different than Diablo III. It’s all increasing the resolution. And in action it makes the movement but feel more fluid, with stuff like character turns looking better than ever.
When you cast Cataclysm [as the Druid], no matter what is going on in the world it brings the rain and storms with it. Having the ability to dynamically change weather based on abilities is fun. As such, there are a lot of things that we can do with that.”
There is currently no ETA on when Diablo 4 will come out. However, we’ll be sure to keep you posted!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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online only, don’t care
You obviously do as 3 was the same and yet here you are again.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a10289869d8430b49a602c2d7704657ed3b3d1290b20bbf3199057a01051374.jpg
Need to change that to Buzzard games.
Have to admit, the actual moment to moment gameplay looks incredibly fluid and satisfying. Everything from the animations to the backgrounds to the spell fx are handcrafted to perfection. It just looks so smooth.
POE looks awesome, but this production value is at another level.
Yeah their ARPG games are just way ahead of the competition in level design alone.
So way ahead that PoE beat a sh*t out of Diablo III. And PoE 2 has been announced, will get PBR too and from the impressions it will beat the sh*t out of Diablo IV. Don’t get me wron, Diablo IV looks good and I’m excited about it, but it ain’t perfection.
Fanboy rant, so whatever.
it ain’t perfection, of course, but it looks better than PoE2 in terms of production value, and we have absolutely no way of knowing if PoE2 will “beat the sh*T out of D4” atm, this is just fanboy talk. From what I’ve seen, I’ll be playing both, but if I had to choose, there’s just no way I would pass on Diablo to play PoE instead.
Agreed, funny how we aren’t allowed to like more than one game in a genre you just have to be a fanboy nowadays.
False dichotomies are the rule of the day.
Well, Diablo 3 looks really smooth too. Barbs walking around and fighting is the best thing ever. I wonder how much better things can get
Since when comments needs to be approved by admins? The end of free speech in dsogaming?
No they are pretty good here.
They’ll have to do better to impress me.
Zoom out !!! ’bout time !!!…..
why bother posting about Blizzard games here? It’s like everyone is a Blizzard hater in this site
downvotes say it all, lol
Because they are cowards. Real men do not respect cowards.
Woah, what’s next?
More than 5 classes?
Whoa. A camera that can zoom, and it will have better animations. Truly boundary breaking enhancements. Also, it’s under lock & key of Acti/Blizz, so this game can f*** right off.
I can’t agree more… Acti/Blizz are sooo pathetic…