![]() The results aren't as highly exaggerated as in Diablo 3, but it all feels appropriate given the more realistic visual tone. ![]() Bits of the environment can get blown apart when hit with an errant spell or hit with a melee strike. Enemies convincingly ragdoll when killed, or when cleaved into pieces. My sorcerer's ice spells have excellent-looking shaders, and frozen enemies get blasted into icy bits when hit with powerful abilities. On a micro level, there's lots of cool touches as well. ![]() When the screen is packed full of enemies and spell effects, the game looks excellent - but it still manages to remain legible for gameplay purposes. Like Diablo 3, enemy groups tend to be large and come at you fast, necessitating screen-filling crowd control and AOE abilities. You do still get a high-end CG intro in Diablo 4, but the other story segments are real-time sequences, which manage to hold their own despite the close camera angles.ĭiablo 4 delivers a huge upgrade over Diablo 3 in terms of rendering quality on consoles, while retaining the same 60 frames per second target.īut the core of the Diablo 4 experience lies in its fast action combat. These sequences are impressive, representing a big leap above other Diablo titles, which simply didn't have the graphical fortitude to pull off real-time close-ups like these, instead relying largely on pre-rendered cinematics to tell their story. Occasionally the game segues into some proper in-engine cutscenes, which are presented with Blizzard's typical cinematic flair. The overall look of the game reminds me quite a bit of 2021's Diablo 2: Resurrected, albeit this time with nicely-modeled, fully 3D environments and accurate lighting. Materials appear to get a very solid PBR treatment, which lends environments a muted-but-accurate look, with soft diffuse snow and dirt, shiny worn floors, and speckled wet stone. The game is almost always presenting a top-down view nearly parallel to the ground, so you don't really get the opportunity to inspect anything from close range, but from the gameplay view all the details in the world hold up very well. Each environment is caked with geometry, with a ton of little crannies and crags across every worn surface. Watch how all the current-gen versions of Diablo 4 - and the PS4 build - stack up in this video review!ĭiablo 4 also features quite impressive environmental detail and asset work. Diablo 4 isn't pushing any boundary-expanding tech here as far as I can tell, but a lot of attention has clearly gone into lighting the game, especially in the game's softly-lit, dark dungeon interiors. And in some circumstances the lighting can cast multiple shadows at once off the same object. Certain light sources showcase a kind of variable penumbra effect at times, with shadow detail falling off at range. There are some interesting tricks going on here as well. Light just dances through dark spaces in a really pleasing way, with softly diffused shadows moving in concert with the player character. The subtle play of the shadowmaps as you move through each interior space is very cool, very attractive, and very atmospheric. Essentially, most lights within the game world are shadow-casting, and the player gets a sort of soft frontward-facing light to illuminate the area around them that also casts shadows. The most impressive aspect of Diablo 4's visual presentation is the lighting. At a glance, it's definitely a pleasing effort, especially when you consider the colossal visual leap from the prior games - but can it sustain the 60fps delivered by its predecessor? Do the new visuals take special advantage of the latest console hardware? And what about last-gen consoles? Diablo 4 is a return to the dark, realistic stylings of the first two series entries, with modern rendering tech and a focus on current-gen consoles and PC. Some eleven years after Diablo 3, Blizzard is back with another barnstorming hack and slash adventure.
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