Diablo 4 designer says its “absolutely critical that players feel powerful” to maintain popularity

Blizzard’s Diablo 4 has a ten-year roadmap internally to keep the game going well into the future. While the ARPG has been heavily criticised as of late, especially after the release of its 2025 roadmap, it’s still satisfying despite its often annoying seasonal focus.

In a recent interview, Diablo 4 systems designer Aislyn Hall explained that the key to keeping players engaged is to make sure they always feel powerful. While players have called for a return to the harder difficulties of older entries like Diablo 2, Hall believes empowering the player is “absolutely critical”.

Why Diablo 4 focuses on power

Speaking to ArsTechnica, Hall explained that “it’s absolutely critical that players feel powerful in any game they play” although the “sense of power differs from genre to genre”. While farming games like Stardew Valley empower players by giving them fields of crops to harvest and plant, Diablo 4 focuses on high damage numbers of hordes of enemies.

“The way I think about how players can feel powerful is the concept of the immovable object and the unstoppable force,” the systems designer explained. “When a seemingly immovable object is put in front of a player yet the player is an unstoppable force, that sense of power emerges.”

As the live-service game continues with expansions like Vessel of Hatred and the upcoming 2026 expansion, Diablo 4 needs to continue increasing the feeling of power for players. However, Hall admits that Blizzard went too far with expanding power when designing early updates for the game.

“We knew that player power was expanding more rapidly than our previous difficulty system could manage,” the developer said. “When we were designing the Torment system for Vessel of Hatred, we took a step back and audited the power of player builds, then compared that against how many difficulties we thought would be appropriate to progress through.”

Hall also explained that the live-service nature of Diablo 4 has meant that the studio needs to constantly shift who they’re focusing on. When an expansion releases, the focus will always be on “early-to-mid” progression for new and returning players, but during seasonal releases the updates will focus on experienced players who stick with the game.

“As seasons have passed, we find that a large portion of our audience has naturally shifted to experienced players,” Hall said. “These invested players typically care more about the late game being polished and replayable, so our focus shifted to that stage of the game.”

Blizzard has huge plans for Diablo 4 in the future with a new battle pass system in the works and secret features not revealed in the recent roadmap.