Diablo 4 coming "early 2021" as per 100% accurate Leak

This is 100% accurate leak from 4 months ago:

Release is being debated between late 2020 or early 2021 depending on how things go, but as of now it seems early 2021 is more likely.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/c8waxp/diablo_iv_release_window_details_and_more_leak/

READ the whole LEAK without visiting external site (click here)
Official Title - Diablo IV (No sub title)

Camera View and Genre - Isometric MMOARPG

No Load Times (except loading in the game for the first time or logging in and out)

New sophisticated Engine with a ton of improvements over Diablo III and new functionalities for new gameplay systems and visual design

Made for consoles in mind from the get go

Art Style is VERY dark, gory/bloody and gritty - think Diablo II days mixed with Dark Souls and Bloodborne but much more modernized obviously. The new engine is able to create atmospheric visuals and dark tones that immerse the players. Picture the world of Sanctuary as if it was in the Dark Souls or Bloodborne universe. Super dark and gothic.

Blizzard are happy with the many systems and improvements they've made over the course of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls such as the Kunai Cube, Wardrobe loadouts, Seasonal Journeys, Rifts/G-Rifts and so on.

Blizzard learned a lot from their Diablo III and Reaper of Souls mistakes/lessons and used the feedback to create and design new and improved systems for Diablo IV

Music is going to harken back to Diablo I and Diablo II. It will feel very very familiar to the old-school Diablo fans but also have it's own unique twist to it and sound that is catered specifically to Diablo IV

Blizzard will be treating Diablo IV as a reboot of the franchise. Those who wanted a Diablo II Remake and a brand new Diablo game will be pleased. Basically, it's a combination of both made for the modern era. Best way to think of this is the latest God of War that was released in April for the PlayStation 4 in 2018.

Diablo II Remake/Remaster was planned, but they later realized that it would be much better to give the franchise a complete reset and put majority of the fans requests into 1 giant package.

The demo we've seen lasted about 20 to 30 minutes. I am not sure if this is the same demo they will be using for Blizzcon later this year or if they have a new one in the works specifically created for the fans and press too see.

The demo showcased core elements of Diablo IV such as the Loot, Barbarian Class (a bit of Druid as well), Combat and the most interesting (in my opinion) how it all comes together as an isometric MMO and blends in with a brand new eco-system and creates a next-generation Diablo experience

The world of Sanctuary is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than before due to the game going the MMO route. The space is necessary to accommodate the players.

A server will hold around 100 or so people at a time as of now.

Tristram will be one of the Hub cities in the game. (This was one the one we saw in the demo) Blizzard has stated there are more hub-cities, but did not show or told us what they are.

You can trade items in the game with other players such as gold, basic crafting materials (special crafting materials are soulbound and cannot be sold) and any kind of loot ranging from grey quality and all the way up to rare yellows. Blizzard is not sure yet what to do with Legendary items/weapons yet and if they should be tradeable or not as far as the game's economy goes due to competitive fairness and end-game systems that have a lot of functionalities with the legendary loot.

The class that was showcased in great detail to the employees was a Barbarian- signature moves such as whirlwind return and many other favorite skills. Druid was also part of the demo, but for extremely short time and only used as an example for their new combo combat system.

Combat system will have combos. You will be able to use a combination of skills in succession to do more damage or create larger area of effect attacks. As a Barbarian you can chain pull into an enemy and then jump over them and then you have a choice of either throwing them into another demon or grabbing them and then pummeling them into the ground with your bare hands or simply stunning the target and then use an execution move to chop their head off. You can ONLY do execution moves when the enemy is near death.

The demo showed how a druid player can use the combo system. In the clip the player was able to morph into different animal forms (including wolf and bear) during mid-combat flawlessly without any weird transitions or awkward attack animations using different sets of moves and skills from each of the forms in a matter of seconds. It looked very impressive.

The combo system was created to evolve combat for the Diablo franchise. Blizzard wanted to make sure that if they're going dark and gritty, the combat had to be dark and gritty as well.

Paladin, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Amazon and Druid are planned for launch with more coming later. Blizzard wants people to feel like this is Diablo II all over again but in a completely new era of the franchise. Blizzard were also debating whether to include the Druid or Necromancer class at launch of Diablo IV. Blizzard decided put the Druid for launch of Diablo IV and Necromancer for later, since the Necromancer was released already for Diablo III.

Crafting will return in Diablo IV and will be a very important system and part of the entire game and its economy. If you enjoy crafting in MMOs or in games in general then you are in for a treat according to Blizzard.

Blizzard is well aware of games such as Path of Exile, Grim Dawn and Wolcen and their current skill systems. As a matter of fact, they have a whole special team dedicated to playing those games extensively for research and game development purposes. Blizzard are creating something new unique of their own for Diablo IV as far as character progression goes and yes stat allocations are back as well.

No word on PvP yet or anything of that sort. However, Blizzard did say that since they're going the MMO route, the PvP factor is kind of important to a lot of players. Although, right now they're strongly focusing on creating a fantastic PvE Diablo experience. They do not want to promise anything in regards to PvP ever since with what happened to PvP in Diablo III only to later disappoint the fans. PvP is something that will be looked at in the future once the game is in a stable place and the playerbase is happy.

Diablo IV will be the new era for Diablo and will be a game as a service. New free content patches will come out that will add quality of life changes, new additions, items and so on. Paid expansions are also possible, but right now its still undecided and Blizzard won't know until the game is launched and until they see if its successful or not. They do not want to announce anything that's regarding to paid content until they are 100% sure of their plans and what they will be adding next post-launch.

Right now the goal is to get the game ready playable demo for Blizzcon's 2019 and of course all the marketing material as well. After that, it will be preparing for the beta in 2020 and then the release.

Release is being debated between late 2020 or early 2021 depending on how things go, but as of now it seems early 2021 is more likely. Will be coming to PC PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett.

Other interesting things from the leak:
- D2HD was planned, but canceled
- Paladin and Amazon are next 2 classes
- Gold is tradeable currency

Yes, we are sure. The post was the same at 14th of July 2019:

8 Likes

And I’m the next Pharaoh of Egypt.

See how easy it is?

18 Likes

Yeah, super easy to guess right so much stuff LOL.

3 Likes

Oh…
How how would you like your pyramid sir?

3 Likes

That person did guess a lot of things right. But I wouldn’t assume they’re correct on the release date because they were off on a couple of things. So clearly some new things have been planned and already implemented by BlizzCon, which could change the release schedule.

I’m specifically looking at PvP. That leaker says PvP will be focused on after the game is stable and the player base is happy. But Blizzard has already said PvP is a guarantee. Which I took to mean at launch.

Having said that, I’ve always thought it possible for a 2021 release. Dunno how early in 2021 though.

Guess we’ll find out over the course of 2020.

3 Likes

It’s pretty clear he himself (or his friend) played/viewed the Demo 4 months ago. He also have insider info about other things not related to Demo.

“You will be able to use a combination of skills in succession to do more damage or create larger area of effect attacks”

Considering almost every skill has a cooldown…fat chance of that.

Amazon, Paladin…:rofl: I guess they couldn’t find anything more boring.

And everything during development is subject to change or removal (sapphires, anyone?), and since this was posted months ago, case closed. But leave it to the feeble-minded to pass this off as gospel.

2 Likes

Mid 2022 is logoc to me. Even late 2022

So you’re telling me they’re rushing the game and it’s going to be a bug ridden mess. Par for the course.

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Why rushing? There are still 16 months to early 2021. That’s a lot of time when you have a big team of programmers.

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The issue is not the programmers it’s the testing.

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If Blizzcon demo was indeed just a tiny underdeveloped slice of a game, then 16 months is not enough no matter how big and competent the team is.

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What do you want to test so much? That’s an aRPG, not RTS. There will always be imba stuff.

I am more concerned about trading of gold and possible 3rd party sites emerging selling Diablo 4 gold.

I dunno, but the Demo showed they are basically ready with 80% of the important stuff and all looks great besides the trading exploits.

1 Like

Yes. But seeing an early demo doesn’t mean he knows everything as I’ve already alluded to.

2020 just seems impossible for a release date. I’d expect us to be in Alpha testing if 2020 / early 2021 were the expected release window.

I always go to reddit for 100% truth and accuracy… :laughing:

Bugs don’t care about balance either.

I am not saying he knows, no one knows all details atm even the CEOs, I am saying what he said is not a lie and he has insider info about planned release windows.

Do you know the chance of someone stating precisely THAT MANY details (I counted 13) about Diablo 4 right?

It is like winning all lotteries in the world this week.

And I’m saying I think he got told wrong information on the release window or he made a mistake, because I don’t think there’s a prayer D4 is released late 2020.

This leak seems to be very accurate, especially when you consider the demo this leaker viewed was probably some time before their post on reddit.

It would make sense that Blizz had made more definitive decisions by the time Blizzcon came around.

The also said on their latest shareholder call that they are ramping up developer resources to get titles released faster.

Doesn’t mean they’ll hit the 2021 target, the reason they talk about it internally but not tell us is because Blizzard will totally delay a project if needed.

I’d be interested to know what made them decide to remove the combo mechanics. I can understand them removing the execution thing as that sounds very disruptive to the flow of the game, it probably worked better when you are fighting one or two enemies only.

We will have more details when the game enters Beta, because the Beta state will be at least 6 months, so if game releases 1st of January 2021, Beta should have begun in summer 2020.

I don’t see any big problems ahead of them. All major in-game systems besides crafting seems ready.