‘Diablo 4’ director pushes back on claims of repetitive dungeons
Speaking to NME, Diablo 4 director Joe Shelly has pushed back on criticism surrounding dungeons in Diablo 4, which some players claimed were too repetitive during the game’s beta.
Diablo 4‘s first beta ran last weekend (March 17 – March 20), giving players their first chance to play Blizzard Entertainment’s upcoming action role-playing game.
While reception to the game was largely positive, some players have claimed that the dungeons of Diablo 4 feel too repetitive and lack variation.
Speaking to NME‘s Jake Tucker, Shelly has acknowledged the feedback and claimed the beta’s limited playable area is partly responsible.
“The dungeon feedback is something that’s really interesting to us,” shared Shelly. “The beta is isolated to a single area of the world. There are five zones in the world, and you’re only playing through Fractured Peaks. We put well over 100 dungeons in the game — many of those are not in Fractured Peaks. We expect that as you’re levelling up your character, you’re going to be adventuring through many different dungeons rather than doing the same dungeon over and over.”
“The game rewards you for that,” the director continued. “We have mechanics like the Codex Of Power, and we have different types of mechanics for different dungeons. Some dungeons are about killing all the monsters, some have different kinds of objectives. Some of them have bosses at the end, while others have events at the end. It’s really about – during the level-up period – experiencing all of the different dungeons that exist in the world, and of course, in the beta you’re only getting a fraction of that.”
However, Shelly added that the endgame experience in Diablo 4 will feature more variance, as the Nightmare Dungeon mechanic will allow players to use keys to modify existing locations with additional affixes.
Rod Fergusson, general manager for the Diablo franchise, added that Blizzard wanted Diablo‘s underground locales to have a “sense of place” so that players have a recognisable location attached to their Nightmare runs, rather than Diablo 3‘s Greater Rifts which introduced a single randomly-generated dungeon.
“Having that sense of place grounds the world more,” continued Rod, who added that Blizzard will “continue to iterate on dungeons and other features” after Diablo 4 launches in full.
Elsewhere in the interview, Fergusson said that the beta’s server issues will lead to a better launch for the game, and claimed that classes shouldn’t always feel equally balanced.
The post ‘Diablo 4’ director pushes back on claims of repetitive dungeons appeared first on NME.
Andy Brown
NME
