Despite some conclusions i’ve read in this forum about D4 using a new game engine, it seems that this is not true. Considering the short time of developing, similar mechanics and assets, i think that D4 uses the same engine as D3 and some arguments that validate this statement are given by David Bravik (creator of diablo franchise) in the following clip:
EDIT: Starting from 48:36 to 50:47
D4 uses the PoE engine kappa.
If you see D4 engine as being the D3 one, you need some very big glasses my friend …
New engine is a fairly vague, and often meaningless term, engines tend to build on previous engines. So it can be a new engine, and also be based on D3s engine.
But you really cant judge it on how the art looks.
Nailed it. Its not like they started from scratch. It may have ben just a major update to their D3 engine i.e. as going from engine version 7.12 to 8.0. At which point they called it a “new” engine.
Sure…if you got cataracts…
You judge by the physics, not by the graphics. It’s a new engine.
It’s the same Diablo 3 engine with a little modifications.
Gonna be awful.
Wow, look at this! Someone has calculated the time in development already!
FYI, proprietary game engines are usually worked on and created by an independent team within the company. They usually have certain goals set in front of them, but they don’t develop with any particular game in mind. An engine is just an engine.
When there’s a need to make certain game (Like D4) - they take the best suited engine and put it together. AFAIK Blizzard is all about modularity and code re-usability. They don’t need to re-write all of it from scratch, as they re-use libraries and classes that are already created for other games.
For example, think of something like MovableOblect class. Every object, be it player monster or fireball projectile that would have to move around the scene - inherits from this base class. Inside, the class would hold object position, rotation information, anchor(parent) information, i.e. in relation to what object does this object moves. It will have methods for re-calculating all these things based on some input.
Once you’ve written such a class once, if you did a good job - you don’t have to write it again EVER. You can just plug it into your new game and it will work.
Blizzard does that A LOT, as do any other team that’s worth a damn.
In Diablo, because there’s already D3 that is in working condition - entire hierarchies of objects may be ported to and from rather easily. For example, an enemy that has health, is killable, can move around, has an animation manager and can attack based on simple AT - all of this can be ported from D3 (or even from Starcraft) into D4. Some elements like stats, AI resistances - may be replaced by other versions without taking everything else apart.
That’s why you may see “new engine” to be assembled rather swiftly. Doesn’t mean the work stops there, though, as there’s usually lots and lots of work to be done.
It’s more likely to be the Overwatch engine than D3’s. It’s more modern and has better optimization. (The genre of the game has nothing to do with the engine, you can make any type of game in any 3d game engine. They just share common things like the graphics rendering, physics and particles, networking, etc)
Physics mean nothing. Just like graphics, physics (and many other aspects) can also be upgraded while keeping the core the old engine.
In many, many cases the engine is an updated version of the old one. For example take the the Creation Engine used in Fallout 76, peel enough many layers out of it and you’ll find the core of the NetImmerse engine used in Morrowind.
I’d wager anything on D4 using an updated engine rather than a completely new one. It takes a huge investment to build a new engine from scratch.
I don’t see how this could be true when the physics themselves illustrate the code below.
For example, let’s take the mechanic with the jump from mount and/or casting of stuff while moving - this particular new mechanic is not available in D3 not because the D3 engine hasn’t been updated for it, but because to update the engine for something like this the coders have to write ton of other stuff before that like how these layers interact with everything else.
If it was so easy to just update some engine and D4 is a D3/OW updated engine we would have seen new mechanics in D3 already, based on the new code from Diablo 4.
Diablo 4 engine is written with the idea for every other of the new implementations in mind like the seamless interaction in the world or the matching of players during world events.
You can’t just take some engine and update it for a few months and call it a new game. 150 of the PoE programmers are making their 4.0 version with major engine update for more than 2 years now and the result is that such mechanics like those shown in Diablo 4 are completely missing. One can’t add whatever he wants to an engine. It’s not that simple.
Why would it be difficult to add new things to an old engine? Let’s keep using the Creation Engine as an example. Prior to using in F76 it had zero lines of code to support any sort of multiplayer. Yet they managed to add multiplayer features to that engine, much to my astonishment.
A game engine is basically a collection of “sub-engines” attached to a skeleton. These sub-engines include: graphics, audio, physics, networking, etc. The skeleton underneath usually stays more or less untouched but all others attached to it can be upgraded. The skeleton underneath is typically very invisible to most people.
edit:
Engine upgrades are rarely done to an existing game as it requires a lot of effort to make it work properly. Usually such things are done for new games.
for sure they didnt take D2 engine for D3 … was a mistake ?
U cannot say D4 have his own engine , and nothing to compare to D3 , there is some similitary or likeness .
Nothing more to say , graphic of D4 gameplay are not so good , i feel like they are from 2015-16 …
D4 is on 4k? wtf are we talking about on this topic?
Yes, but you can’t use that skeleton for every next game. There comes particular time when new technologies appear and you simply build a new engine based on these.
I am not an expert in the programming field, but I can tell you for sure that they started Diablo 4 with the idea to be an MMO game with seamless interaction between the zones, and if D3 engine wasn’t the best option or didn’t allow for this, they build the major portion of the D4 engine from scratch. It’s never 100% new code, but I guess the bigger portion of the code is new.
We are luring some of the D4 crew members to join the thread and share info about the D4’s engine. Shhh!
Edit: In fact I just invited Matthew Cederquist to this topic (you can do that from button invite at bottom of thread).
Really? Take Unreal Engine 4, peel off enough and you should find the skeleton of the very original Unreal Engine.
If the skeleton is good, it can be used a very, very long time. You can’t judge whether the engine new or not based on what you see. As I’ve already said, a lot of the aspects can be updated and expanded of an old engine to make it very modern. That doesn’t make it however a new engine.
To my understanding, it’s a new engine, a new renderer, and new lighting system. The folks here have spent a lot of time modernizing it to bring it to it’s full potential.
I know everyone is chomping for more information but I’m sure they’ll have more details as time progresses!
Built completely from scratch? If not, it’s not a new engine.
Yes, I know, I’m splitting hairs here…
Of course you can - if the engine uses a new technology not available to old skeleton and you see it in-game this means it can’t be the old engine. Whether this is the case with Diablo 4, we have to see.
Great news! Thank you for sharing with us since this is something that is interesting for many gamers.
Yeah, Diablo 4 gameplay looks incredible. And the world atmosphere as a tone and direction is on the level of a top Hollywood production. This is simply the best game in the series visually by far from the rest.
Seems like this is the case indeed.
Blizzard most likely has a barebones engine they use to start projects from scratch. When they feel the engine needs to be updated, for example modern rendering, they update the rendering component. As far as networking goes an engine can support both MMO and ARPG style multiplayer, because the low level networking component only cares about sending and receiving data, not how or why that data is networked.
Blizzard probably has all sorts of engine components and tools at their disposal, no sense in re-inventing the wheel.