NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News
Blizzard Entertainment has finally unveiled Rogue, the fourth class to be included in Diablo IV.
The Rogue class was revealed during the company’s annual BlizzCon event, which took place entirely online this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Like the previously revealed Barbarian, Sorceress and Druid classes, Rogue isn’t an entirely new class in the Diablo franchise. It was part of the original 1997 Diablo game, but did not feature in Diablo II or Diablo III.
Rogue is a dexterity-based character class, with a versatile skill tree that allows players to utilise both melee and ranged attacks, as well as abilities to set traps or use shadow magic. For Diablo IV, the class can be categorised as a cross between the Demon Hunter and Assassin classes.
he Rogue class was shown off via a hefty trailer that combines a gory cinematic clip with a gameplay montage of Rogue in action. Speaking to Polygon, Diablo IV game director Luis Barriga shed more light on the class’ return, and how it was reworked for the upcoming game.
“We took the Diablo I rogue as an aesthetic and fantasy starting point; we took some of our favourite elements from other dexterity classes; and then we added some new ideas that we felt specifically appropriate for the Diablo rogue,” said Barriga.
The developers also detailed some of Rogue’s abilities. Rogue comes with a unique system – Weapon Imbue. Barigga explained: “The Weapon Imbue system is something that’s brand new, [that] we haven’t done in any class before.”
“[It’s] essentially a button that you hit it, and whether it’s frost or poison or shadow, it now makes all of your attacks take that characteristic,” he continued. Rogue will also be equipped with three different specialisations: Combo Points, Shadow Realm and Exploit Weakness.
Barriga shared that the Combo Points “almost makes a rhythm game out of combat”, while Shadow Realm lets players “build around and ultimate that lets you slice the field of battle. It can be used for both offence and defence”. Exploit Weakness on the other hand does additional damage to enemies winding up for their bigger attacks. “It’s a twitch-based mechanic”, Barriga said.
While Blizzard did unveil the fourth class in Diablo IV, players have been warned that the game will not launch this year. According to Polygon, a fifth class for the game is also expected, but has not been revealed yet.
The post Revamped Rogue class unveiled for ‘Diablo IV’ appeared first on NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News.
