The fact that there was no mention of sidequests and stories during the interview, but rather World Bosses, PvP zones and Events, reveals its open world to be very much in service of a game-as-service – bolstered by the fact that you’ll be sharing the world with other online players (though not in an MMO way, as Blizzard urgently keeps reiterating). Of course, the nature of these activities is more Destiny 2 or Path of Exile than, say, Red Dead Redemption 2. By letting you meander through other activities while working through the story, the game makes you engage with the world that bit more, introducing some of that open-world sense of discovery into the series. It’s great that Diablo 4 is integrating its campaign, PvP and endgame into one world – a massive improvement on Diablo 3’s fragmented Campaign and Adventure modes.

“It’s the survival aspect of the game where I’m just trying to get in, get Shards, go to the vendors, and get out”. “I see the Fields of Hatred as PvE content,” he says. Here you’ll collect the unique currency of Blood Shards by fighting monsters as well as other players, though Mueller points out that more cunning players can engage with this region in a different way. PvP, meanwhile, will take place in a dedicated region called the Fields of Hatred. “Then, having completed the Camp you might discover that a World Boss has showed up in Scosglen, so maybe you head up there to deal with that with some other players”.

“You might waypoint into the Fractured Peaks, hop on your mount, ride out to a camp, complete it, along the way you might get distracted by an event… maybe some Goat Men are harassing some villagers”. Lead designer Joe Shelly gives me an example of how a regular day out in this more open iteration of Diabloland might look.

Diablo 4 info