Thousands of monsters fall victim to our blades or our magic in Diablo. Even unique enemies can easily get lost in a crowd. But until now, Diablo has always had a way of drawing our attention to such special foes.
Since the first game, Diablo has had some form of color coding that has allowed us to distinguish the standard skeleton from the skeleton king. Diablo 4 will be the first installment in the series to omit this coding. Game Director Joe Shely and General Manager Rod Fergusson explained this in the third part of their video interview with IGN.
You can see the full video right here:
link to YouTube content
That’s why there are no colored monsters in Diablo 4
Coloring of monsters could always be a little bit different in Diablo, but it was present in the game from the beginning. In the first Diablo, there was a distinction between white monsters and unique ones, whose names were colored gold and were even identified by a cone of light.
Blue was added as a new color in Diablo 2. A distinction was made here between white normal monsters, blue special monsters or unique golden monsters. Then, in Diablo 3, yellow monsters were rare and unique ones were colored purple. Diablo 4 will no longer have tints of this type, but special monsters still have unique affixes such as dreadful
.
The gold coloring of the names was also retained in Resurrected.
The developers justify this waiver by saying that the monsters should be more grounded. In general, Diablo 4 tries to stage the world much darker again and the golden, blue or purple names probably got in the way. In detail it says:
One thing you don’t see is the color coding for champions or elite monsters. They don’t glow yellow or blue, everything is much more anchored in the world. So it feels different in the sense that it’s more grounded.
– Rod Fergusson
At the same time, we continue to explore ways of when and how monsters are highlighted.
You mentioned that elite monsters are not color coded. It was very exciting for us to find areas where we could anchor the monsters more in the world. But at the same time to recognize where clear communication is important. For example, there was a point where the monsters would hide behind pillars and the like. It would be more realistic not to see that. But it was also very frustrating.
– Joe Shely
You can read more about Diablo 4 and what makes the game different from its predecessors in our preview:
more on the subject
Diablo 4: How Blizzard is changing its action RPG
how do you see it? Would you like to have the old colors back or can you do without them in favor of the atmosphere? Take part in our survey!
