Diablo IV Interviews

Following the early access beta and ahead of the upcoming open beta for Diablo IV, Blizzard’s Joe Shely and Rod Fergusson spoke to a couple of media outlets to address some of the feedback produced by the aforementioned early access beta.

In his interview with NME, Joe Shely talked about the game’s dungeons and how the current perception of them being repetitive and linear may not be exactly accurate. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“The dungeon feedback is something that’s really interesting to us,” shared Shelly. “The beta is isolated to a single area of the world. There are five zones in the world, and you’re only playing through Fractured Peaks. We put well over 100 dungeons in the game — many of those are not in Fractured Peaks. We expect that as you’re levelling up your character, you’re going to be adventuring through many different dungeons rather than doing the same dungeon over and over.”

Then, this Eurogamer interview with Rod Fergusson and Joe Shely focuses on the skewed perception of what a beta test should be and how these days it’s more akin to a demo. Beyond that, it touches on the issue of login queues, Diablo IV’s co-op functionality, the latest iteration of the iconic Butcher monster, and more.

For example:

Sorry, just to slightly interrupt: I saw someone describe the Butcher as a “pissed off treasure goblin”.

Rod Fergusson: Ha ha ha!

Joe Shely: Ha ha! He is a kind of reverse treasure goblin – yeah.

One of the things that can be really fun is changing up the players’ goals at any given moment, and the treasure goblin does that by running off with a pile of loot that you want, so you’re likely to opt into the extra danger [to get it]. And the Butcher does that by ambushing you and creating a situation where you’re likely to run and potentially run into other danger or navigate under pressure. So broadly speaking, in Diablo 4, we’re looking for other ways to add that kind of gameplay that changes the player’s experience on the fly.