You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here The next Diablo 4 season is almost upon us, reviving the Lord of Lies for a brand-new boss fight and allowing players to use Boss Powers as their seasonal bonus. Following the positive response to the higher difficulty of the Season of Witchcraft, Blizzard wants to continue making the game harder. However, while the Diablo 4 team is working to make the game more challenging for long-time players, they also explain that they can’t make the game too hard. With this in mind, the team has a tough balance to find—one that make take a while to truly nail—and they’re hoping they don’t accidentally turn the game into a “slog”. Diablo 4 difficulty will ramp up even more Speaking to Polygon, Blizzard revealed its plans to slow Diablo 4 down and make it more methodical and challenging, similar to Diablo 2. Lead live game designer Colin Finer explained that there were parts of Season 7 where players could just AFK their way through the game, which “wasn’t something that we felt was true to Diablo” as a whole. In PTR tests for the current season, some players were unhappy at the new powerful bosses due to Blizzard’s “extreme” testing. With this in mind, Season 8 is the start of a new push for a harder ARPG, but more changes are coming. “It’s still a little bit more difficult than season 7,” Finer said. “We think that that little tick of difficulty is really going to help the overall game feel much more rewarding because you’re overcoming actual challenges.” The Diablo 4 developer explained that there’s a tonne of work to be done on refining the game’s difficulty. With an internal 10-year roadmap of improvements coming to the game, Blizzard is hoping to keep the current game going for a long while, and that means they need to make sure the game is satisfying for all players. “It’s a tricky balance because to feel rewarded for something, you have to overcome a challenge. If there isn’t enough challenge, then it just sort of feels like you’re getting candy for free and you don’t really feel that satisfaction of overcoming a boss,” he said. “[Diablo 4 needs to be] just challenging enough to feel rewarding, but not so challenging that it feels like we’re just slowing the game down and making it a slog,” he continued. For more coverage of Blizzard’s long-running ARPG series, check out our interview with creator David Brevik. Additionally, read about the original, MMO-like version of Diablo 3 that was in development before the version we know and love today. Diablo 4 Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X Genre(s): Action, Action RPG, RPG Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share