The in-game user interface has retained most of the features outlined last year, suggesting it's now closer to being finalised. All of these deaths are united by their overblown gore blood paints the walls and floors of dungeons, gathers in pools and runs in rivulets down crevices. Others are more elaborate: The bodies of the subjugated - cultists who channel demons and allow themselves to become possessed - explode as the spirit within them is unbound. Some are fairly straight forward, the ubiquitous cultists of the Halls of Agony, for example, simply buckle and crumple. When dealing death, you'll discover each type of minion has a unique death animation. Should you die, you'll be penalised with a loss of item durability and respawned at the last checkpoint.
These are moderately scarce and are tied to a one minute cool-down, calling for a little consideration before their use. Your primary healing resource remains health orbs of varying sizes and effectiveness that drop from vanquished enemies but health potions are back in the game. Health and healing have been iterated since we last played Diablo III. Called the Warden, this hulking miniboss is very much a nod to the Butcher, under whose bloody cleaver many of us got our first taste of death in Sanctuary.
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As you explore Leoric's Hold and free Alyssa's servants, their jailor will thunder his displeasure. The return of Leoric isn't the only fan service for players of the original Diablo. As always the game's cast of non-player characters are ready to share rumour, speculation and gossip on any event.
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Her profession of innocence comes to a jarring end as Lazarus flips the lever and Alyssa's spectral head rolls across the cobbles.ĭiablo III goes to great lengths to ensure that these background and narrative items are optional - the series has more than a few fans with very little interest in "why." Those who do want some context to their blood shedding will find a rich vein of background information in collectable tomes that are read aloud as they continue to explore. Alyssa explains that she was executed by her mad husband and charges you with freeing the six ghosts of her servants.ĭeeper in the hold you'll come across a secluded room in which the apparitions of Leoric and Lazarus have placed Alyssa within a guillotine and demand she confess to treason. Eventually the king was slain by one of his own knights, only to return at the head of a skeletal army.Īs you enter the dungeons of the hold in Diablo III you're approached by the beheaded ghost of Queen Alyssa, Leoric's wife. He was driven mad by Diablo and his descent was aided by the corrupted Archbishop Lazarus. As a result, the game can relay stories as you play, rather than in large blocks of voiced-over text back in town.īy way of example, a little lore: Those who played the original Diablo will recall that Leoric, for whom this dungeon is named, was once ruler Khanduras.
It means that while there's still ample tangential exploration and more than a little back-tracking after exploring a dead end, Diablo III has more staged scenarios and features levels that flow naturally. The layout of each dungeon is still randomised - a hallmark of the series - but they contain many larger preset pieces. Before you know it you're far too busy thinking three steps ahead, scything down minions and kiting their masters, pausing only to consider a particularly gory demise or to collect loot. It is, of course, a brief respite from the chaotic action that defines the series. The pale blue hue of Leoric's Hold feels cold. A drop of water magnifies in the silence to a boom, footfalls echo and then splash through a puddle. The draft through a tomb reverberates to become a deep, hollow drone. The first thing you'll notice when playing Diablo III is something that no number of screenshots or action-oriented montage videos can impart, the atmosphere - a great deal of which is owed to the sound design. The demo available this year consisted of two dungeons, the Halls of Agony and Leoric's Hold, joined by a brief passage of play above ground in the New Tristram wilderness.
Each year at BlizzCon we've watched the game grow as another of Blizzard's lengthy development cycles rolls on. We've been following Diablo III with the kind of fervour that would result in a restraining order were Deckard Cain a real person. SHARP: The first thing you'll notice when playing Diablo III is something that no number of screenshots or action-oriented montage videos can impart, the atmosphere.
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