In the latest quarterly update for Diablo 4, Blizzard is geeking out about the game’s art, and honestly, for good reason. The blog post goes very in-depth about the game’s art, environment, character look, and more. While the technical stuff is way over my head, anyone that can see can take away that Diablo 4, visually, looks incredible.
Art Director, John Mueller references the widely-praised Diablo 3 pre-rendered cinematics as a “touchpoint” to build a foundation for the art and environment of Diablo 4. They were far more realistic-looking than the Diablo 3 in-game engine and very much fell in line with “dark fantasy.”
The goal in Diablo 4 according to Mueller is to essentially make that same look come through, not just in cinematics, but the entire game. The result is that Diablo 4 no longer has pre-rendered cinematics and everything will be rendered using the in-game engine. Here’s some of how it looks via Blizzard.
If pictures aren’t enough for you, Blizzard also shared this video giving you a feel for how the characters and their armor will shuffle and move, and interact with the environment and light.
The blog post also touches on how some boss and other enemies will look. In particular, they put special attention on the detail of each. Here’s a look out how the very eerie Blood Bishop moves and looks as an example.
There’s a lot more, too much for us to include in this post, on the blog post. If you’re really into seeing how the art is coming along and want to go crazy zooming in to see every little detail of everything that Blizzard was willing to share today; and getting their full thought process behind it, the post is definitely worth checking out.
Diablo 4 is currently slated for PlayStation, Xbox and PC, but no release date is yet known or confirmed.
