‘Diablo 4’ is good news for dog lovers, but bad for arachnophobes

Blizzard Entertainment has shared a new video exploring the world of Sanctuary in Diablo 4, revealing reworks for some of the series’ classic enemies and good news for dog fans.

The video was shared yesterday (February 21) and revealed an extensive look at Sanctuary, the world in which the Diablo series is set.

In it, Blizzard shared that a number of the game’s regions are inspired by real-world locations. Fractured Peaks took inspiration from Europe’s Carpathian Mountains, for example, while the game’s land of Scosglen is inspired by Scotland.

However, the video goes on to show that these lands have been taken over by a number of monsters – some of which are returning enemies who have been given a rework for Diablo 4.

“We definitely redesigned some of the monsters,” shared senior quest designer Harrison Pink. “For example, the fallen family has gone through a major redesign to make them feel more grim, a little scarier, a little darker, to match the tone of Diablo 4.”

Pink also shared that while snakemen have also appeared in past Diablo games, they will be “really twisted” in 4, with “multiple snake heads [and] even human body parts.”

Spiders, a long-time nemesis in the Diablo series, will also be getting a new way of preying on adventurers. A mob called Spider House will feature large spiders attaching themselves to corpses, which explode in a shower of smaller spiders if killed.

“I feel slightly guilty about traumatising a lot of people with it,” joked art director John Mueller.

Pink and Mueller also confirmed that players will be able to pet Sanctuary’s dogs. “So many people asked to pet the dog,” shared Mueller, explaining that “it [was] actually a lot of hard work to figure out how to pet that dang dog.”

Elsewhere, Blizzard’s latest video touches on the existence of “narrative-heavy” side quests, bounties and strongholds to clear, and altars that offer permanent account-wide buffs to characters if players can find them.

In other gaming news, Microsoft president Brad Smith has said the company doesn’t “see a viable path” to buying Activision Blizzard without its Call Of Duty series.