Diablo 4 Dev Update Details Character Customisation and Gruesome Monster Designs

Diablo 4 Dev Update Details Character Customisation and Gruesome Monster Designs

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Matt Lorrigan

Blizzard has released its latest quarterly update for Diablo IV, detailing the game's character customisation, and showing off some of the brilliantly gruesome monster designs that will be found in the game. 

Diablo IV art director John Mueller explained how a complete overhaul of the game's rendering engine and authoring tools was needed to make sure that player characters looked “as artistic and handcrafted as possible” while still allowing players to customise their characters, a first for the Diablo series. The result is a “robust” character customisation system that offers up different body types, unique personas, and hundreds of customised armour sets.

“I can say now (with the hard work behind us and the comforting steady hum of our pipeline) that it was all worth it,” says Mueller. “We hope you agree (when you play it) that it really enhances the overall experience of the character's journey exploring the world of Sanctuary and makes the story, the gear, and the ways you see the characters of Sanctuary that much more enjoyable.”

Interestingly, one side effect of this change is that most of the game's story cutscenes will now be rendered in engine using the in-game models, although Diablo IV will still include the epic cinematic moments from Blizzard Animation that players have come to know and love.

The developer update also goes into detail on some of the monster designs that players will come across in the game, including the unsettling and pulsating Blood Bishop, or a giant spider enemy spawning smaller spiders from within a corpse. It all looks fantastic and detailed from up close, but the game's art team also had to make sure each enemy had a distinct silhouette to make them easily readable from the game's pulled back, isometric camera.

“Level of artistic detail is always a challenge. Details need to be readable for the game, colors need to group well, silhouettes need to stand out, as well as being built for performance and movement,” says Diablo IV associate art director Nick Chilano. “Understanding this is key to allowing our monsters to look great from our isometric camera while also delivering stunning details up close.”

You can check out the full quarterly update for Diablo IV, including some great video clips and images, over at the official Blizzard website here. Diablo IV is due to launch on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, while next-gen console releases are still yet to be confirmed.

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