It’s been a busy weekend for major game leaks. In addition to the first ever footage from a very unfinished GTA 6 being plastered all over the internet midway through September, a full 43 minutes of the unfinished Diablo IV was uploaded on Sunday the 18th. Footage from the ongoing friends and family alpha test was previously released last month, but not in this detail.
To be honest, this is a strange one. It’s footage, as revealed on Reddit, of exactly what Diablo IV should look like.
It’s in ultra-wide mode, with a clean, minimised UI in the bottom centre and a compact map and quest list in the top right. The rest of the screen is taken up by a character running around in the dark.
Screenshot: Activision Blizzard
Although the screen nearly entirely consists of watermarks rather than actual video, you can still make out some brand-new features that appear to be quite cool, like a Barbarian character demonstrating some powerful attacks.
There is a lot more depth in the textures already in place, and there is climbing and jumping across gaps.
More Diablo seems to be just what anyone would desire.
When I watch the footage, I find it amusing that features like climbing or jumping stand out. It’s absurd that such gaming staples feel like special new additions, but this is a series where change is incremental and glacial. And, if such changes worry you (as they should—we don’t want Diablo to become a third-person action game), rest assured that they appear to be just more interesting ways to go up and down stairs or move around a level. You’re not timing jumps; you’re simply pressing a button when you’re near a gap.
But, more importantly, it reveals a game with significantly more verticality than previous entries in the series.
Caves feel much more three-dimensional, not limited to ‘levels’ when ascending and descending.
When combined with the character creator and class information we saw in August, this leak almost acts as an unofficial marketing campaign for an impressive-looking game.
Screenshot: Activision Blizzard
It’s a fascinating glimpse into an in-development build, just like GTA 6. However, this is a much later stage of development, with the game due sometime next year. It’s rather charming to see the bright green boardwalks and hear it played with stilted AI voiceover placeholder dialogue. The worst aspect of this leak is the poor streaming quality.
There are some mission spoilers in there that I won’t share because they benefit no one. It’s worth noting, however, that Activision Blizzard has yet to have the original leak’s files removed. Unlike Take-Two, perhaps they recognise the incredible free publicity such leaks provide, despite disrupting their marketing plans.
Screenshot: Activision Blizzard
As it happens, it’s a spectacularly stupid leak. Whoever decided to stream this to friends (presumably on Discord, given the constant blee-bloops throughout) didn’t thoroughly vet who was watching, and instead played a heavily watermarked build covered with “PRIVATE TEST BUILD” and then a unique number. That is to say, just like last time, Blizzard will have no doubts about who is to blame.
The bigger issue is perhaps how it can successfully conduct a private alpha test if leaks like this are gonna be so frequent and widespread. Even compared to Diablo III, which was released in 2012, these are quite different times to be creating a video game. It will be fascinating to see how programmers react to upcoming alpha/beta tests.