Diablo 4 quarterly update focuses on environmental art

What you need to know

• Blizzard Entertainment shared a new quarterly update on Diablo 4.
• This update focuses on the environmental design and art of the game.
• Diablo 4 was delayed and is not slated to arrive in 2022.

Blizzard Entertainment shared the latest quarterly update for Diablo 4 on Tuesday, diving into the art design of the environments across the game.

While the prior update focused on endgame progression, with the March 2022 quarterly update, Blizzard provided details on exactly how the development team is working on making the various regions of Diablo 4 feel distinct.

Lead exterior environment artist Matt McDaid notes that the world has been designed as a "return to darkness," with an emphasis on dark overgrowth and corruption, particularly in the more forgotten places of the world. Along the "return to darkness" pillar, the second pillar of the art design is "old masters," which encourages the team at Blizzard to focus on older painting techniques when considering the detail of a scene.

As previously revealed, Diablo 4 consists of five different regions, including the weathered Scosglen Coast, which Blizzard has made more believable and real by adding dynamic props such as swaying fishermens' nets and ships rocking in the coastal waters. You can take a look at some of the areas in the game below:

Diablo 4, like Overwatch 2, was delayed and will not be launching in 2022. This announcement came alongside the news that Blizzard Entertainment co-lead Jen Oneal departed the company, citing a lack of faith in Activision Blizzard leadership following the events of the lawsuit in 2021.

Activision Blizzard is also in the process of being acquired by Microsoft in a deal worth almost $70 billion. The deal is expected to close at some point before June 2023 and will add Activision-Blizzard as an Xbox first-party publisher.