TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,989
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
One man's trash is another man's legendary item.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Real item crafting is finally coming to Diablo 4. I say "real" because the way you can modify items right now is so simplistic compared to what's on the way in the Lord of Hatred expansion next month. The two developers I spoke to while visiting Blizzard HQ in January convinced me we won't be looking at loot the same way ever again.
Inspired by Diablo 2's crafting, Diablo 4 will get its own version of the Horadric Cube, which is basically the dark fantasy version of a magical crafting table. You put items into it and better items come out. There will also be a list of recipes for crafting items in different ways, like combining three of the same uniques into a new one.
The biggest change is what's happening to loot in order to support a system like the Horadric Cube. Right now, low-tier items, like commons and magics, disappear from the game once you're leveled up and start ping-ponging between endgame dungeons. In Lord of Hatred, they're coming back, but with one notable change: Any item will be able to drop with a supercharged "greater affix" on it—something only legendary items can have right now. You can then take those items, drop them into the cube, and upgrade them into legendaries.
For a game all about loot, this is a massive change to how you progress your character through the game. Anything could be an upgrade as long as you have the materials to try to craft it into something better. The ground won't be littered with only orange anymore; white, blue, and yellow items can be the lucky drop that transforms your whole build.
This change goes hand-in-hand with the loot filter that's coming in Lord of Hatred. You can set it up so only useful items are visible on the ground. Need more critical strike chance? Tell the filter to highlight items with that specific stat and ignore the rest. Since its release, Diablo 4 has incentivized you to pick up every item and salvage the useless ones for materials, over and over again. Design director of systems Colin Finer told PC Gamer salvaging isn't going away, but it'll matter less and less as you progress through the game.
"We feel like the game just feels a lot more hollow now where you just don't really see anything except orange beams, and then you become accustomed to it, and it just doesn't feel like there's texture to it," he said. "So we fe...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Real item crafting is finally coming to Diablo 4. I say "real" because the way you can modify items right now is so simplistic compared to what's on the way in the Lord of Hatred expansion next month. The two developers I spoke to while visiting Blizzard HQ in January convinced me we won't be looking at loot the same way ever again.
Inspired by Diablo 2's crafting, Diablo 4 will get its own version of the Horadric Cube, which is basically the dark fantasy version of a magical crafting table. You put items into it and better items come out. There will also be a list of recipes for crafting items in different ways, like combining three of the same uniques into a new one.
The biggest change is what's happening to loot in order to support a system like the Horadric Cube. Right now, low-tier items, like commons and magics, disappear from the game once you're leveled up and start ping-ponging between endgame dungeons. In Lord of Hatred, they're coming back, but with one notable change: Any item will be able to drop with a supercharged "greater affix" on it—something only legendary items can have right now. You can then take those items, drop them into the cube, and upgrade them into legendaries.
For a game all about loot, this is a massive change to how you progress your character through the game. Anything could be an upgrade as long as you have the materials to try to craft it into something better. The ground won't be littered with only orange anymore; white, blue, and yellow items can be the lucky drop that transforms your whole build.
This change goes hand-in-hand with the loot filter that's coming in Lord of Hatred. You can set it up so only useful items are visible on the ground. Need more critical strike chance? Tell the filter to highlight items with that specific stat and ignore the rest. Since its release, Diablo 4 has incentivized you to pick up every item and salvage the useless ones for materials, over and over again. Design director of systems Colin Finer told PC Gamer salvaging isn't going away, but it'll matter less and less as you progress through the game.
"We feel like the game just feels a lot more hollow now where you just don't really see anything except orange beams, and then you become accustomed to it, and it just doesn't feel like there's texture to it," he said. "So we fe...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?