If anyone wants to look at something interesting then watch Diablo 3 beta from 2012.
The similarities are really something.
[5:45] - A ladder you can use which wasn’t in D3 Retail but is in D4
[6:00] - Obstacles that require you using an ability to get through them which isn’t in D3 Retail but now is in D4
[7:30] - Your character engaging in conversation instead of sitting back while other people do the talking. It even has a conversation screen to bring it front and center. D3 Retail doesn’t have this but D4 has gotten a revised version of this of course with a few cutscenes.
[7:52] - Non-Important NPCs that joined your party that weren’t accompanied with Important NPC’s. They even did some killing.
[18:05] - Actual Gore that merited the animation. What we got in D3 Retail was nothing of the sort.
Also if you take notice from 11:57 on up you’ll see that they are on a single map from the door all the way until they encounter the Siegebreaker boss. That’s pretty significant because Siegebreaker is a main boss in the D3 Retail that requires you to defeat inorder to advance. The Beta makes it appear as though the game has more connected areas than what D3 Retail turned into where you wouldn’t have to go into an Arena map just to confront a main boss. In Diablo 2 you could start from Act 1 Town and walk all the way to the entrance of the cathedral which is a very long distance. There were many sections like this which felt very open in D2. In Act 4 on the last section called River of Flame, you could walk from the stairs all the way to Diablo himself and not have to load any maps. That is a very seamless map design. I dont see much of any advancement with this in D4.
2 Likes
That is not the diablo 3 beta
Yes, there are structural similarities, or as I called them, repainted/used textures. But it’s not D3 by any means.
Of course its not but it sure has taken more ques from D3 Beta than D3 Retail.
Therefore the essence of D4 is D3 beta. All of the individual features that I’ve named in
D3 Beta that were not present in D3 Retail are present in D4. That speaks volumes.
I think it’s fair to re-use assessts and concepts that are cut for future iterations of a franchise and most companies of big franchises would do this in some form.
What concerns me personally is are the good things we are seeing in pre-release trailers and such actually be in the game.
Aside from overall polish to ui and such i wish d3 retail had more of the traps and such in the game,such a shame for 10 years they didn’t even add back in some of the content that was cut for whatever reason at the time.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying d4 is a d3 beta in it’s essence,all diablo games have something from each other just like all franchise games.
I just hope we don’t get a over-edited cut of this game just to meet release dates.
I don’t think it’s fair to demonstrate the many features for an upcoming title in it’s alpha form to then show a game with less features upon release.
The transversal of elevations using ladders and jumping across obstacles shown in the alpha along with Siegebraker being present on the main map instead of an arena map highly made us think that the whole map system was connected in some fashion like an open world. This was all originally shown in D3 alpha but actually became implemented in D4 12 years later.
Yikes, Diablo 3 looks absolutely terrible.
People paid for that?
yeah i agree with you on the features thing,I even went back and looked at more recent footage of the zombie wall in d3 and was like man now i want the one in the video.I am kinda fearing the same for d4 i feel like d4 trailer class footage feels different to the beta i played.With the game being basically live service it’s subject for years of changes both which will be good and bad at times,like it was for diablo 3,was always a touch frustrating coming back to my characters a few seasons later just to find they no longer can even run the rift level i was running at the time of the set release for example.
