Blizzard has released its latest quarterly update for Diablo 4, which was first announced at BlizzCon 2019. The highly anticipated game is receiving these updates to offer fans insight into the development progress - and presumably to put off the constant pestering for a concrete release date. The update was posted yesterday and shows off some aspects of the UI design, talks about controller support, and adds a new family of monsters as well as their supporting background and lore.
If you've played Diablo 3, you'll be familiar with the sleek design of the user interface, and clearly this is something Blizzard wants to replicate in the next instalment of the franchise, but with a darker twist. Thanks to the live demo that was available at BlizzCon 2019, some of the larger issues that came to light are being addressed. The inventory has had an overhaul, and icons are being given a much more realistic look with clearer border decorations to indicate the rarity of an item.
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A little more bafflingly, many players have asked for the ability to re-bind the left-click ability, which up until now has been reserved for the character's main attack. As a direct result, you'll now be able to "re-bind any skill to any slot". This will be true for players who prefer to use a controller - speaking of which, controller support will be implemented for the PC version, too.
The position of the action bar is also changing. Console versions will see the bar moved to the bottom left corner as it seems to be the preferred position "when people play further away from the screen". In contrast, the PC version will default to the bottom centre (as with Diablo 3), but PC players will have the option to move the action bar to the bottom left corner if they so choose.
The new 'family' of monsters that have been introduced with this update are the 'Cannibals'. You can read all about their background and lore on the update page itself, and you can take a good look at the four different types in the video below (click here to watch on YouTube, in case the embedded video isn't displaying below).
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"The Cannibal family has four members," says Blizzard. "They each have their own unique weapon and a significantly different silhouette or stance to help differentiate them from one another. There are two standard melee combatants: one wielding a two-handed greatsword cleaver, which delivers a slow, sweeping frontal attack; and the other using a lightweight halberd which allows them to leap at players from a great distance and crash down with a devastating attack."
You can check out the official post for all of the details on the latest Diablo 4 progress update. There's quite a lot to wade through, though, so you'll want to wait until you have a spare ten minutes or so to get through the whole lot. And, of course, there's no word on a release date quite yet; but as it's being developed simultaneously on PC and console, I'd imagine we won't see anything until after the release of the next-gen consoles.
Featured Image Credit: Blizzard EntertainmentTopics: Diablo 4, Blizzard Entertainment