Diablo 4 gets new game director, audio design discussed in quarterly update

Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment provided another quarterly update for Diablo 4 on Thursday. As the next mainline entry in the action role-playing game series, Blizzard is providing updates on every facet of the game. Per this update, Joe Shely is now game director of Diablo 4, replacing Luis Barraga, one of several staff let go from Blizzard. This comes as Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit, with the company accused of allowing a sexist workplace environment to grow.

While the prior quarterly update focused on the designs of characters, Blizzard discusses how the team is recording audio for the different spells, effects, monsters and regions of Diablo 4. For example, to record the fire effects for the Sorceress‘ flaming spells, the team went out and lit some things on fire.

The audio team at Blizzard also notes that sounds almost never play back exactly the same way twice, with differences introduced by wind and air pressure, the enviroment and more. As a result, the team is looking to introduce slight randomized variations for the atmospheric sounds players hear when roaming through the game world. You can hear some examples of the rain in Scosglen in the video below:

Blizzard closes this update by noting that the next quarterly update is focused on the endgame and different visual effects.

Diablo 4 doesn’t currently have a release window. In our interview with the team, Blizzard talked about PvP, cross-play and more.