In continuing with our commitment to provide quarterly updates on Diablo IV development, we are excited to announce that our final blog of 2021 is officially live! For this update, Game Director Joe Shely, Lead Systems Designer Joe Piepiora, and Lead Visual Effects Artist Daniel Briggs are focusing on several topics including a first look at Diablo IV’s itemisation updates for legendary gear and class skills, the end-game character growth system, as well as a look at how our VFX artists create the different eye-popping visual effects when slaying monsters.

You can check out the blog for all the details here.

Diablo IV is focusing heavily on combat customisation through skill trees and Legendary items. Skill Rank Affixes on items will be returning to beef up or unlock skills through gear you collect. Legendary powers are changing so they will not be tied to a specific item type, meaning you don’t have to hunt for a specific item just to obtain a single coveted power. You will even be able to destroy Legendary items to extract their powers and transfer them to another piece of Rare or Legendary gear.

We know fans have been eagerly awaiting more details on what is in store for endgame character growth. Diablo IV will be bringing back the Paragon system but with a major twist. The Paragon Board unlocks for each class at level 50 and contains tons of different tiles with branching paths to invest points into. You will also be able to find Glyphs throughout Sanctuary that can be embedded into your Paragon Board providing even more bonuses.

Of course, Diablo is known for the visceral blood and gore! With so many skills at your disposal, we want players to revel in the bloody massacres they cause as they watch it unfold on screen. In this blog we dive into how the VFX team creates the visuals around combat in all its gruesome glory.

We hope you enjoy the final Diablo IV development update of the year, and we can’t wait to share more in 2022.

For more details about Diablo IV, please visit the official website.