Blizzard’s quarterly update for Diablo IV comes at an unfortunate time, given that the studio is still mired in a massive sexual harassment and abuse scandal – a scandal that saw Diablo IV Game Director Luis Barriga, among others, booted from the company and the Diablo teams within Blizzard cast in a particularly unflattering light. Barriga has now been replaced with Joe Shely, a former design lead on the game, who introduces the blog series – and himself.
“Like many of you, our team has been reflecting upon recent events,” Shely writes. “A lot has happened since our last blog and the hard work of practicing the values we aspire to must continue. In parallel with that important work, development of Diablo IV continues too.”
Sound Supervisor Kris Giampa then takes over to tease the game’s sound design – and naturally, there’s a music track in it for you. He discusses how the team will “broaden the experience to be inclusive for people with hearing or visual disabilities,” how the team varies repeated sounds so that they’re familiar but not exactly the same in every experience, and how the world building team integrates the sounds for open world and dungeon ambience.
