Blizzard has provided its regular quarterly update for Diablo 4 where it looks like character creation and customization seem to be pretty legit and a bigger deal compared to previous games. Read on for details.
The team shared progress on their detailing and customization system while touching on the level of detail made possible including skin, cloth, simulation, hair, fur, and metal. This extends down to highlights on your character’s eyes and sweat.
Blizzard notes these painstakingly detailed updates extend to armor, various body types, personas, and unique art for the five starting classes. They showed off the Lair scene where we’ll get to customize the look of our character which includes a wardrobe system to mix and match “hundreds” of armor components. Of course, color palette selection is also available to truly create our hero.
This investment in detail has a knock-on effect to the cutscenes in the game driven by the engine. Yes, these cutscenes will use your customized character. While this isn’t necessarily new in games today, it is new for a Diablo title. In fact, that Rogue class announcement trailer was created entirely within engine.
“In previous Diablo games, the high fidelity cinematic story moments were all pre-rendered. We will still have those amazing cinematic moments from Blizzard Animation, but now we also have cinematic moments that feature your character up close, rendered in our game engine. We have been working closely with the legendary Blizzard Animation team to bring as much of their knowledge into our process as possible. The Rogue Announce trailer was a really fantastic collaboration where we were able to push the limits of our tech and tools.”
You can check out the full update here. Diablo 4 has received several community updates since its reveal including a look at itemization, and huge changes coming to its skill system.
