In a recent interview conducted by DiabloFans, Diablo III developers Travis Day, Josh Mosquiera and Wyatt Cheng address some of the next-gen rumors surrounding Diablo III and its development. In this interview, the aforementioned developers mention that any talk and announcements surrounding next-gen Diablo III only refers to the Playstation 4, as no Xbox One announcements have yet been made. The reasoning for this being, for one, that the development team have not received their Xbox One next-gen dev kits.
As for the preliminary release date for next-gen Diablo III, the developers have set their sights on a 2014 release. The team wants to make sure they give themselves enough time to further develop Diablo III for next-gen, and don’t want it to be “just another port”. The development and polishing work on Diablo III for PC and current-gen consoles also has to be maintained, so Blizzard will not be rushing development of the next-gen versions. In the meanwhile however, Diablo III will be launched on September 3rd for both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
The team also expressed their excitement over the Dualshock 4 controller. In the interview, the developers reveal that they are taking a closer look at the Dualshock 4 and are looking into implementing Diablo III gameplay with the controller’s features in a unique manner, particularly the Track Pad.
Personally, I can’t wait to return to the world of Sanctuary in the next gaming generation, and expect to see many new tricks and improvements to it. The fact that Blizzard are taking their time with transferring this franchise entry rather than making it a straight port just strikes me as very promising, and I’m happy the team have chosen this particular direction for Diablo III.
