Diablo collection employer Rod Fergusson recognizes the moment is involving go on from the PS4 and Xbox One, yet states that time ain’t currently.
Speaking to IGN, Fergusson confessed there’s a “time and place” to go down last-gen gaming consoles, which are currently over a years old in this instance, and launch web content specifically for the existing gen PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and computer. That stated, he believes there’s study in still life left in the older equipment, at the very least when it concerns Diablo 4.
“There’s always a time and a place for when maybe it’s time to no longer support a platform,” Fergusson stated. “I don’t think we’re at that time. But we have a long road for Diablo 4, and so we do talk about, ‘hey we have this idea for a feature, but maybe it’s not a feature our min spec or gen eight players can support, so it’s not something we can do today.’ But we keep pushing the boundaries on that.”
Despite the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S currently resting someplace in the center of their corresponding life process – Sony stated in February that the PS5 remains in “the latter half” of the console cycle – there are still lots of games, specifically in the live-service area, that still sustain last-gen equipment. In Diablo 4’s instance, there are technological functions that are special to current-gen, like ray mapping, yet content-wise there’s full parity with last-gen gaming consoles, which Diablo art supervisor John Mueller called a “creative challenge.”
“We’re pretty good at finding fallbacks,” Mueller stated. “That’s how we think of it. We’ll figure out a way to do a fallback, like if there’s something really awesome we want to do. I don’t think we’ve been gated by it. We’ve generally leaned into it, and it’s been a creative challenge to figure out, okay, how do we accomplish that on gen eight? So the two things will look slightly different depending on the platform.”
Fergusson and Mueller are both talking on attractive unclear terms, yet to me the ramification is that there can be a factor where Diablo 4 grows out of the PS4 and Xbox One and just goes down last-gen assistance. Square Enix finished Final Fantasy 14’s PS3 assistance in 2017, the PS3 and Xbox 360 variations of GTA Online passed away in 2021, and Destiny quit sustaining PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2016, and I’m sure there’s a lot more criterion that isn’t instantly entering your mind.
“It’s part of the conversation, always,” Fergusson included. “Like, we have this idea for a new feature, can we do it based on what we’re supporting today? Yes or no? And generally, as John was saying, we can. We find ways to do it.”
