Diablo 4 is supposed to get more MMO elements than most of its predecessors. This caused some raised eyebrows among fans of the series, especially in light of the controversial Diablo Immortal. But MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus says: One of these MMO features is just right for Diablo 4.
What is this feature? It’s about the Shared World. Diablo 4 is supposed to get more MMO elements, including an open world that you always share with other players. You can’t play offline and can only somewhat play solo.
Whenever you are in open areas, you can encounter other players. For certain content, it is even necessary, such as for the big world bosses from Diablo 4. These can only be defeated by groups.
However, the Shared World is something that has been critically viewed by the community for some time. Especially long-time fans wish that they could please play Diablo completely alone.
I say: A Shared World is what Diablo 4 desperately needs. In fact, even much bigger than it is currently planned. Only then can the game be successful.
Diablo 4 draws on the best features from its predecessors and continues the story. This is the current status of the game:
Diablo is dead – Long live Diablo
In the early days of Diablo, most players played solo – especially since cooperative play over Battle.net was at best mediocre. Moreover, there was always the risk that someone would snatch the good loot from you.
But that is all in the past. Today, such a thing can’t happen anymore. Loot in Diablo 4 is personalized and the connection is much more stable. Therefore, unwanted effects that had significantly lowered the quality in the past are now rare.
Playing games like Diablo completely solo is simply outdated. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish the solo community plenty of games. I still play many things alone myself.
But the future of action RPGs definitely lies in multiplayer. Diablo 4 needs an MMO feature that brings the world to life with other players if it is to survive. And it must survive because otherwise the entire genre has a big problem:
There are even two very recent examples showing how well an ARPG works as an MMO. Lost Ark enjoys enormous popularity and is still doing strongly on Steam. Diablo Immortal was a huge success despite significant criticism from the community.
Clearly, Blizzard has learned from this. I already said last year, that I want Diablo 4 to be like Diablo Immortal. And it is now taking those features that the game needs.
Some features will come to Diablo 4 later, including runes and sets. In the video, we show you what else you didn’t know about the game:
The Shared World is not as bad as you all think
Especially when Diablo 4 announced its MMO features, there was doubt in the community. On reddit and elsewhere, threads appeared that condemned this decision repeatedly. Today, this has eased somewhat.
In fact, the feature is not as bad as it is often portrayed. In the open world, you should only see other players “occasionally”, while for world bosses there are a few more. You enter dungeons only with your group or alone.
For me, it could have been a lot more, as in Diablo Immortal. But the number makes sense, because there aren’t that many people left in Diablo 4 anymore. Some angel wiped out 90% of them beforehand.
The Shared World, and especially the Social Hub in Westmark, has already made me interact more actively with people in Diablo Immortal and be more interested in the game. In Diablo 3, the incentive quickly faded if you didn’t just want to grind.
The approach of a multiplayer service game is exactly what Diablo 4 needs. If the coverage with new content runs better than it did with Diablo 3, I see the future quite positively.
