★ Season 3 is live as of January 23, 2024!
┗ S3 Journey | S3 Questline | S3 Battle Pass
★ Season 3 Class Tier List | Best Season 3 Blessings
★ Learn more about Seneschal Companions
┗ Governing Stones | Tuning Stones
★ Vaults | Nightmare Vaults | Arcane Tremors
Blizzard talks about Diablo 4 (Diablo IV) in great detail in their quarterly updates blog posts. Read on for a full list of all Diablo 4 quarterly updates, and a quick summary of each one.
List of Contents
Outside of the recent reveal for Diablo 4's early access release, there have not yet been any Quarterly Updates in 2023.
Early Access Dates and Times: How to Play Diablo 4 Early
| 2022 Quarterly Updates | March 2022 | June 2022 | August 2022 |
|---|
| ・Art Direction: Believability more than realism, through the use of modern techniques and utilizes physically-based lighting. ・Locations in Sanctuary: Scosglen Coast, Orbei Monastery, and Kyovashad were shared and talked about in detail. ・Dungeons of Sanctuary: Over 150 dungeons that are procedurally created but still feel handcrafted. The art and feel of dark and horrific Forgotten Places, Wretched Caves, and Flooded Depths were talked about in great detail. |
| ・Necromancer Class Features: The Necromancer has two different types of resources that they use: Essence and Corpses. The Necromancer class and its playstyles were explained in detail here. ・Necromancer Playstyles: Bone skills are relatively physical in nature, and thus benefit more heavily from effects such as Critical Strike. Darkness skills use Shadow magic to overwhelm their enemies. Blood magic siphons the life of their enemies. Necromancers can also summon the Undead Army to do their bidding. ・Book of the Dead: This is the Necromancer’s unique class mechanic, a space where you can customize your army (or lack thereof), with increasing options as you level your character. An explanation of this was detailed in the blog. |
| ・Seasons & New Content: Diablo 4 will be a live-service game post-launch, as the team continues to create new seasonal content. ・Refreshing the Meta: The developers will always be evaluating the state of the game, looking at the relative balance between classes, builds, and powers, to keep the game fresh. ・Improving the Game: The team will identify quality-of-life features and polish work that can be done to improve the overall game experience and invite the community to vote upon their priority. ・Live Events: Attentive players should be on the lookout for new live events each season, like an impending invasion of the Drowned, or the arrival of a strange peddler amidst the crags of the Dry Steppes. ・Season Journey: Players earn limited-time rewards with each chapter of the Season Journey that is completed. There will be pinnacle-level difficulty challenges for players to complete, proving their worth and earning unique cosmetic rewards besides. ・Battle Pass: This is the live service monetization in Diablo IV. The Battle Pass has Free Tiers and Premium Tiers, awards cosmetics, Premium Currency, and free Season Boosts. |
| 2021 Quarterly Updates | June 2021 | October 2021 | December 2021 |
|---|
| ・Character Art: All art was hand-crafted to look artistic using cutting-edge tools, but not dwelling too much on realism. The Diablo 3 cinematics were a strong foundation to build the art of Diablo 4 from. ・Improvements to Art: The artists made massive improvements to the level of detail with Physically-Based Rendering (PBR). The surfacing of complex materials like skin, cloth simulation, hair, fur, and metal, even down to the details of the highlights of the eyes and rivulets of perspiration all look grounded in reality. ・Character Customization: Creating your character will be very in-depth, as you will be able to change the face of your character, hairstyle, facial hair, add jewelry, makeup, and body markings. You will also be able to change the color values of your character’s skin, eyes, hair/facial hair, and body markings. ・Expanding the Dye System: The dye system allows you to change the color palette of your armor pieces, such as changing silver to gold or replacing a white cloth with a black cloth, etc. Each part of the armor can be dyed, including the helmet, chest, gloves, legs, and boots. ・The In-Game Camera: The game camera was given top priority, as the player character should look good from the isometric perspective in all armor sets. ・Monster Designs: Models and art for several enemies were shared, including: The Blood Bishop, The Skeleton Lord, a Spider, and a Succubus. More 3D models were displayed, showcasing the efforts of the team to create amazing-looking visuals. |
| ・New Music: The BGM Fractured Peaks was given a preview by Sound Supervisor Kris Giampa, and is one among the many new tracks to grace the soundtrack of Diablo 4. ・The Devil is In the Details: The composers have continued the tradition of gratifying combat, expanded upon the ambiance to support the epic open world, and continued to embrace the darkness in tone and gore while also trying to deliver a cleaner-yet-punchy audio mix that’s adapting to the situations as you play. ・The Sound of Diablo: A deep dive into the recording process of monster audio, skill audio, area ambiance, breakables, and sound design in general was given, showcasing the audio team's commitment to providing a great aural experience. |
| ・+Skill Rank Affixes: As players invest points in skills, they grow in potency, and finding items with +Skill Rank can speed that along. ・Legendary and Unique Items: Legendary powers now appear on multiple item slots, like rings, chest plates, or helmets; there’s no need to hunt for a specific item type any longer. ・The Occultist: The Occultist can extract a legendary power from a Legendary item, then implant it into another Legendary item, overriding its power. ・Hunting for Items: Certain types of monsters will more often drop certain types of items. ・The Paragon Board: The Paragon Board unlocks for each class at level 50. You can unlock a personalized set of bonuses that will empower your hero. This board is made up of Normal Tiles, Magic Tiles, Rare Tiles, and one single Legendary Tile. You can power up tiles by turning them into Sockets using Glyphs. |
| ・Visual Effects Philosophy: “Gameplay First” drives a lot of the artistic decisions made. Things like player skills, monster telegraphs, traps, damage areas, and character states should be considered. ・Combat Improvements: AoE target areas are now animated. Furthermore, data in the animation and the animated target area is used to find the most accurate place to hit a monster, and where to apply a directional physics force to the ragdoll. ・Casting and Receiving Light: PBR (physically based rendering) is used, which makes materials look and realistically react to light. ・Dynamic Player Skills: The System Design team has a variety of modifiers they can utilize to create meaningful skill trees, class mechanics, Legendary items, and Paragon Boards. ・Skill Driven Deaths: Every monster is built with a skeletal and muscular structure used for killing them in brutal ways. Skill-driven deaths allows you to decapitate, bisect, freeze, shatter, eviscerate, and burn your enemies. |
December 2021 Quarterly Update
| 2020 Quarterly Updates | February 2020 | June 2020 | September 2020 | December 2020 |
|---|
| ・Inventory: Updates to inventory coloring, style, size, and aesthetic. ・Rebinding Left-Click: Ability to rebind left click to separate primary skill from movement and attacking. Furthermore, all skill slots can now have their keys rebound. ・The Left-Corner Action Bar: The health and action bar will be moved back to the center for PC players. ・Controller Support on PC: Diablo 4 will have a unified UI to support both controller and mouse and keyboard on PC. ・Couch Co-Op UI: User interface for local 2-player co-op has been improved. |
| ・Monster Family: Monsters are classified into Families, which are made up of different archetypes that work together to fulfill different roles as enemies. For example, The bruiser, ranged combat, melee combat, swarmer, and dungeon boss. ・Who Are the Cannibals: Cannibals are a Family of humanoid enemies that prey on lonesome caravans and unsuspecting villages. They have no long-range attackers and therefore overwhelm the players with swiftness and frenetic movements. |
February 2020 Quarterly Update
| ・Team Playtest: The milestones leading up to BlizzCon 2019 culminated in a team playtest of the demo that helped the devs to unveil the game during the show. ・Blockout Assets: A few images of concept art were made public. ・Storytelling: Diablo 4 is evolving how it does storytelling: First, by using tool-generated and manually choreographed cameras to tackle conversations. Second, by employing real-time cutscenes (or RTCs), where the scene feels like a movie. ・Open World: One of the main new features in Diablo 4 is the open world of Sanctuary. If you want to take a break from the main campaign and go exploring, crafting, or PvPing, you are free to do so. ・Multiplayer: Diablo 4's goal has always been to incorporate elements from shared world games without the game ever feeling like an MMO. Once story moments are complete and towns turned into social hubs, you’d run into a few people in town and here and there. ・Items and Progression: Diablo 4's System Design discussed itemization and progression systems. More info on this will come soon. |
| ・Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Powers: These powers will be made even cooler, and the ratio of effort to rewards will be improved and streamlined. ・Legendary Items: Less dependence on items for power to make build choices more impactful. Core itemization will further be differentiated as well. ・New Skill System: Major changes were made to Diablo IV’s Skills and Talent systems. A new skill tree with many nodes was shown and explained in detail. ・Sorceress Enchantment System: Sorceresses will have unique mechanics called Enchantments. The power you gain from Enchantments is extremely significant, and you can currently make builds based on your Enchantments, your active skills, or a mix of both. |
September 2020 Quarterly Update
| ・Skill Tree: Further improvement of the Skill Tree. ・Respeccing: Respeccing your characters' skills and passives will be unlimited but it won't be free and will cost much more the closer you are to end-game. ・Primary Stats: Many of the nodes in each class skill tree have additional effects if you meet specific primary stat thresholds. You'll get the baseline effect of these nodes when you spend the skill points to unlock them. ・Weapon Types: All weapon types should feel different from each other to use, and will be upgraded and improved to reflect this. ・Item Qualities: Making changes to the strengths of different item qualities to make them more viable and interesting. The maximum number of affixes on Rare and better items has been increased, and Legendary affixes now roll randomly on Legendary Items. ・Legendary Affixes: Legendary affixes work just like regular affixes, in that they can roll randomly on different items and in different slots. ・Uniques: Unique items are making a comeback in Diablo 4. These are build-around items with completely fixed affixes, heavily thematic and usually class-specific powers, and distinctive looks. |
December 2020 Quarterly Update
| All News Categories | |
|---|---|
| Patch Notes and Updates | Livestreams and Dev Blogs |
How to Farm Temper Manuals
Updated 4/8/2024
A new crafting system that lets you add affixes to gear on the PTR server.
Masterworks System Explained
Updated 4/11/2024
A new equipment upgrade feature on the PTR Server.
The Pit Guide and How to Unlock
Updated 4/11/2024
A new dungeon on the PTR Server where you can farm Masterworks materials!
Lunar Awakening Event
Updated 1/30/2024
A new LTM will arrive on February 6 in celebration of the Lunar New Year!
Update 1.3.1 Patch Notes
Updated 1/30/2024
Nerfs to some NMD affixes, and buffs for Seneschal Powers!
Update 1.3.0a Patch Notes
Updated 1/27/2024
Changes to Seasonal Mechanics, Buffs for Seneschal, and Trap Nerfs
Leaderboards Coming in Season 3
Updated 1/29/2024
Find out more about the new Leaderboards and Gauntlet Weekly Challenge Dungeon!
Season 3 Patch Notes
Updated 1/29/2024
Full Patch Notes for Season of the Construct!
Version 1.2.3a Hotfix Patch Notes
Updated 1/30/2024
Midwinter Blight changes, Gameplay Updates, and Bug Fixes
Glyph Levels Nerfed in Update 1.2.3
Updated 12/10/2023
Glyphs leveled down in patch 1.2.3 explained
November 30 Campfire Chat Notes
Updated 12/1/2023
Abbatoir of Zir, Midwinter Blight, and the upcoming Itemization update
Midwinter Blight Seasonal Event
Updated 1/4/2024
New Quests, Activities, and the Red Cloaked Terror
Update 1.2.2 Patch Notes
Updated 11/6/2023
New Malignant Rings, Season of Blood Adjustment, and Bug Fixes
All Quarterly Updates Summarized
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