Season passes, the in-game shop, the shared world: the big Diablo 4 interview

Earlier this week, I had the chance to play the beginning of Diablo 4, and I put around 10 hours into it. I came away very impressed. To be clear, there’s a lot I didn’t see – the whole shared world vision for the game wasn’t particularly apparent because there weren’t a lot of people playing it. But what I did see, I liked. There’s more depth to this Diablo, and more space and freedom in it, than I think I’ve ever seen in a Diablo game. And the world it presents feels tangible and solid, like a real thing, with characters you will come to know and perhaps even care about. In short, it feels like a generational leap forwards for Diablo, as it should.

As part of the media opportunity, I had a chance to interview game director Joe Shely and lead class designer Adam Jackson, too, and what follows is the conversation we had about the game. There are some points of interest around the game’s in-game shop and what will be sold there; the game’s network performance and potential queues, what with it being an online game; and about how the game opens up to other players once you begin to complete areas in it. But there’s plenty of other chatter besides.

Diablo 4 is due for release 6th June 2023.

Eurogamer: Thank you for inviting me into the game, I’ve been enjoying my time with it. One of the things that really struck me about the opening of the game, particularly after coming from Diablo Immortal, was the pace it opens out with. Diablo Immortal throws a lot at you quite early on, as if to kind of impress you – like big bosses and stuff like that. But Diablo 4 seems like a much slower build. It takes more time to introduce you to characters, and I think the world is a character as well, this kind of sludgy, muddy, kind of grey, quite dour kind of world. It takes its time to do that.