Diablo 4 Codename Is Fenris, May Have Social Features Like Destiny: Report

Diablo 4 is in development and it's codename is Fenris. Although Diablo 4 wasn't revealed at BlizzCon 2018, it appears that Blizzard is hard at work on the game since 2016. According to a recent report, a second expansion to Diablo 3 after the superlative Reaper of Souls was canceled to make way for a fully-fledged sequel. One of these attempts, codenamed Hades, was helmed by Reaper of Souls director Josh Mosqueira. Apparently Hades was inspired by Dark Souls to the point where it had a third-person camera instead of the isometric camera the series is known for and was cancelled after a rocky development period, succeeded by Fenris, which some claim is in better shape than Hades.

"[Design director] Luis [Barriga] has a very strong vision for that game," said a former employee to Kotaku, "one that a lot of people are excited about at Blizzard."

"There's a lot of people who felt like Diablo 3 got away from what made Diablo Diablo in terms of art style and spell effects,” said a current Blizzard employee, adding that Fenris is aiming to look more like the beloved Diablo 2. Said another: "They want to make this gross, make it dark, [get rid of] anything that was considered cartoony in Diablo 3… Make what people were afraid of in Diablo 2, but modern."

What's more is, Fenris will take inspiration from Destiny with strike missions and social interactions similar to Bungie's shared world shooter.

"The question that kept getting asked is, 'If there's going to be a 'strike' equivalent, where you're forced into a very story-focused, well-designed level of a dungeon, what does that look like in Diablo?" said one person familiar with the project. "What if we still had a core Diablo game that just happened to have a bunch of people on the map to do other cool stuff?"

Interestingly, the project is so early in development that it has several unknowns, such as if it will be on PC first like past games or release at the same time on other platforms, its monetisation is yet to be nailed down, and even what choice of camera perspective it would give players is yet to be tackled. Safe to say, we won't be seeing Diablo 4 any time soon.

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