Diablo 5 director says the right build wins out
Joe Shely calls the sequel a planning-and-investment game after a Path of Exile veteran questioned how action-heavy its combat might become.
Diablo 5 remains years from release, with a spring 2029 window and a setting roughly a century after Diablo 4, but questions about how its combat will work have been building. Much of that discussion follows a video from Chris Wilson, co-founder of Grinding Gear Games and one of the original designers of Path of Exile. Wilson said he is tentatively hopeful about the sequel overall, but worried that its combat has drifted toward something more arcade-like and action-focused since Diablo 3, and predicted it could lean further that way rather than returning to the build-centric fighting of the earliest games.
Senior game director Joe Shely responded in a social post, framing the design in terms of player stats. He said Diablo 5 will keep some moment-to-moment execution mechanics, but on balance will be a planning-and-investment game, built on the idea that any challenge can be overcome with the right build. The statement stays broad, leaving room for either a light action layer or a deeper one. Even so, it signals that build composition rather than reflexes alone remains the intended core of the sequel, something long-time players are likely to read as reassuring given the direction of recent entries.
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Sources
Where this story ran: 2 outlets on 29 September 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.