An ancient evil threatens to engulf Sanctuary in darkness, and new heroes have been called upon to face challenges the world has never seen before.

True to the franchise’s roots, Diablo IV will deliver visceral combat, gruesome and varied monsters, an epic hunt for legendary loot, and endless playability and progression. Players will find a lifetime’s worth of adventure scattered across a land rooted in unique ecologies and inhabited by dangerous new foes. They’ll delve into randomized dungeons packed with unpredictable adversaries and unimaginable treasures. While continuing to fully support solo and coordinated party play, Diablo IV will also provide opportunities for groups of players to encounter each other in the same shared world—whether to tackle bigger challenges . . . or possibly even slaughter one another in player-vs.-player combat.

In Diablo IV, players will attempt to bring hope back to the world by vanquishing evil in all its vile incarnations—from cannibalistic demon-worshipping cultists to the all-new drowned undead that emerge from the coastlines to drag their victims to a watery grave. For the first time in the series, Sanctuary will be a contiguous, seamless landmass comprising diverse regions ranging from the burning desert of Kejhistan, to the verdant werewolf-infested forests of Scosglen, to the harsh and rugged wilderness of the Dry Steppes.

Associate director of community Adam Fletcher sat down with members of the development team to discuss additional updates coming in Patch 1.2.0 including Class and damage balance changes, resistance and item updates, new Unique items, and more coming to Season of Blood.

These changes will go live on October 17, but there's more planned throughout the Season with Patch 1.2.1 just on the horizon, with even more details to share at BlizzCon!

So much of the fun in Diablo IV comes from discovering builds that uniquely suit a specific playstyle.

These changes are geared towards encouraging that experimentation, without sacrificing the player feeling powerful.

Campfire Chat Recap 

• In Season of Blood, Elemental Resistance will become a much more important part of a character's survivability. By utilizing methods such as itemization, the Skill Tree, Elixirs, and the Paragon Board, the more Resistance you have against a particular element and the more valuable each percentage is for total effective Life. For example, going from 60-65% Fire Resistance is much more valuable than going from 20-25%.
• Blizzard heard the overwhelming community feedback that Unique items aren’t as exciting and impactful as they need to be. In Season of Blood, they've reworked the Unique items and updated nearly every item in the game. Unique Items will be getting completely new stats to empower them further, along with increased ranges on existing stats and adding stats (such as Critical Strikes) to slots where they previously hadn’t existed. 
• In order to reward players for investing in their primary vector of damage—and to be competitive for doing so—the way Damage is calculated is receiving an overhaul. There will still be different damage buckets, except the base amount of bonus damage these methods provide will be multiplicative. The rest of the bonus damage to these categories will be additive when they are combined, and Overpower builds will be much more competitive than before. Monsters and enemies have been rebalanced around the new player power.
• A slew of Class Improvements are also coming, such as scaling effects for many mechanics across all classes. This includes an increase in damage for the Barbarian’s Blood Rage skill, the Druid’s Victimize skill, and an increase in ramp-up speed to the Sorcerer’s Incinerate skill. These changes are designed to go hand in hand with the aforementioned tweaks to Elemental Resistances, Unique items, and Damage Buckets to enable higher variety and flexibility of builds.
• The changes are slated to come in Patch 1.2.0, which goes live on October 17. For previous quality of life changes, please see here.

 

Diablo IV is being developed using modern technology that pushes the franchise to dark, new depths. This technology is at the heart of everything players will see, hear, and feel—delivering much higher fidelity and a more engrossing experience. It opens up countless possibilities for the Diablo series, from smooth character animations, such as the Druid’s fluid shapeshifting, to the seamless, vast overworld players will travel across in search of the next loot-filled underground dungeon. Ultimately, Diablo IV will ground players in a grittier and deadlier world.

Diablo IV is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.