Diablo IV's Skill Trees Are Literally Trees

Diablo IV director Luis Barriga and lead system designer David Kim returned today to share their progress on Blizzard’s upcoming dungeon-crawling sequel by way of a new quarterly check-in. This included a look at the updated Diablo IV skill tree, which is literally a tree.

Where before the game’s skills were arranged in a basic menu, the screen on which Diablo IV players will chart their character’s growth now features a magnificent painting of a rather demonic-looking tree. The branches contain skills, upgrades, and passive points, the last of which are then spent on passive skills located in the tree’s fiery roots.

The examples in the gallery below come from the Sorceress skill tree. Ball Lightning, for instance, can be upgraded to disperse as a secondary attack called Crackling Energy once it’s reached maximum range. There’s also a passive skill that makes it so critical hits have a chance to create Crackling Energy as well.