With Season 4, numerous new changes are coming to Diablo 4. In an interview, the Diablo head explains why it felt like an entirely new game for many players during the PTR.
From April 2 to April 9, the PTR (Public Test Realm) took place in Diablo 4. There, players tested the new features coming in Season 4. And most of them were very well received. An expert mentioned, Diablo 4 is now “effectively out of beta.”
For other players, the preview of Season 4 felt so good and different that it was hard to return to Season 3. However, the community will have to wait until May 14, as that is when the new season starts.
In an interview with IGN, published on April 10, 2024, Diablo head Rod Fergusson reports why Season 4 felt so different on the PTR for many players. In some aspects, the season is a complete redesign.
Diablo 4 has also recently received a graphical update. Here you can see a video on ray tracing:
“The function of loot has fundamentally changed”
Why does Diablo 4 feel like a new game with Season 4? In the interview, Diablo head Rod Fergusson notes that he has noticed people referring to Diablo 4 with the changes as Diablo 5. He believes this is due to the extensive changes. He specifically mentions:
I believe what they’re pointing out is the scope. It’s a fundamental change. Diablo is a game that revolves around loot. It’s part of the core loop: kill monsters, get loot, become stronger, kill bigger monsters, get better loot, become more powerful. It’s an intrinsic part of our gameplay mechanics.
So if we fundamentally change one of these elements, I can understand why it feels entirely different. And that’s what we wanted.
Fergusson notes that this is a fundamental change: “Season 4 represents a complete redesign of how loot works, and what we call itemization. The understanding of how loot actually functions in the game has fundamentally changed, starting with Season 4 on May 14.”
Part of the changes also involves making the game more accessible. That is exactly what Season 4 is about, “to make things clearer, and that you immediately know what you are looking for,” says Fergusson. With the new crafting, players can determine how the loot evolves throughout the game.
There will be less “useless loot” and the number of affixes will also be reduced. The aspects are also incorporated into the Codex of Power, so they will no longer clutter your chests.
The main new features coming in Season 4 are summarized here:
The Seasons are the “testing ground”
Why did it take so long? When pointed out that the overhaul comes almost a year after the release of Diablo 4 and after feedback from the seasons, Fergusson says: “We wanted to ensure that what we delivered from the start was phenomenal. With a Metacritic score of 90, we wanted to tell the best story we’ve ever told in a Diablo game.”
Watching how people play the game and figuring out what interests them has allowed the team to gradually adjust the game. You can also see this with the Hell Flood, which will also be available at World Level 1 and 2 starting in Season 4 and will receive new features.
That’s the good thing about the seasons, says Fergusson. The seasons serve as a “testing ground” where they try something out for about three months. And if the mechanics work well, they incorporate them into other content – like the aspect of the Blood Harvest from Season 2, which you will then find similarly in the Hell Floods.
The PTR has been helpful for the process. The developers of Diablo 4 felt that “Season 4 will be fundamentally different and so profound in its changes.” That’s why they preferred to get feedback early and integrated the test server.
The difficulty of the PTR, according to Fergusson, lies in the idea that they reveal something. As game developers, they always want to surprise. That could be a reason why you haven’t seen a season theme on the test server. But it was also due to something else: Diablo 4: The PTR is live, but without the new season theme – Blizzard explains the reason.
