Diablo 4 Will Be The First Diablo Game To Feature An In-Depth Character Customization System
If there’s one area that Diablo games are lacking in, it’s character customization. In fact, aside from Transmogrification, there’s really no other way to customize your character’s appearance in the game. Diablo 4, however, is breaking the mold and, for the first-time ever in the Diablo franchise, will feature a powerful character customization system that will allow players to tweak their character’s looks down to the smallest detail.
Art Director John Mueller talks about the progress being made in that department in the latest Diablo 4 quarterly dev update.
“We built a robust character customization system that is entirely new to Diablo and it was a daunting amount of technical character work,” says Mueller. “I can say now (with the hard work behind us and the comforting steady hum of our pipeline) that it was all worth it. We hope you agree (when you play it) that it really enhances the overall experience of the character's journey exploring the world of Sanctuary and makes the story, the gear, and the ways you see the characters of Sanctuary that much more enjoyable.”
Diablo 4’s character customization system will include unique art for each of the five initial classes, dozens of unique looks and personas, different body types, and hundreds of armor components for each class.
“Players will customize the look of their character here in our exciting new Wardrobe system that allows you to mix and match hundreds of armor components unique to your class, alongside custom color palettes to create the class fantasy that best represents your character.”
The team also made significant improvements to the level of detail in the game, including complex materials such as skin, hair, fur, metal, and cloth simulation. These improvements, along with the new character customization system, now allows the developers to include player characters in cutscenes unlike previous Diablo games.
“One of the benefits of the investments we've made in our character art development pipeline is that now most of our story cutscenes will be rendered in our engine using the game models. In previous Diablo games, the high fidelity cinematic story moments were all pre-rendered. We will still have those amazing cinematic moments from Blizzard Animation, but now we also have cinematic moments that feature your character up close, rendered in our game engine.”
February’s Rogue class announcement trailer is a testament to how much the team was able to push the boundaries of their engine, tech, and tools. You can check that out right after the jump. You can also head over to the Blizzard Entertainment official site for the latest Diablo 4 quarterly update.
