The Diablo series has always featured greatness with every title that has been released under the banner. Similarly, after its commercial and critical success on PC and current generation consoles, Diablo 3 is also expected to achieve big things when running on the PlayStation 4. However, there’s some confusion over a massively rumored remote play feature for the game on the new console, as it seems like Blizzard has yet to make a final stand on such a feature.
The prospect of a remote play feature for the game on Sony’s next generation console sprang up recently when Blizzard stated that the company is looking forward to introducing and supporting remote play for the game on the PlayStation Vita.
Speaking recently to CVG at BlizzCon 2013, Console Senior Producer Julie Humphreys stated: “One of the really cool features that comes built-in with the PS4 is this concept of remote play, so you can stream the gameplay that is happening on the PS4 over to your Vita screen. That is something we are looking into.”
“I would say we are in the earliest stages of looking at that. We want to make sure that it is readable and is a good user experience,” she added.
However, the prospect of a remote play feature has already been contradicted by Blizzard itself. It's possible the company is actually keeping that information confidential for the time being, but for the moment, a new report on the same topic claims that the company is not looking into supporting remote play.
Senior Level Designer Matthew Berger told GameSpot at the same BlizzCon event that Blizzard has no such plans. “Not really. Not for the moment,” Berger said.
To support that, the PS Vita’s small screen size was taken into consideration as Berger revealed that the handheld isn’t big enough to efficiently permit players to view the action while manage their inventories at the same time.
“The Vita is an amazing piece of kit, but the screen is still smaller," he said. "And when you look at--and also it has its own aspect ratio--and when you look at Diablo III, there's a lot happening on-screen already. You get surrounded by your enemies, lots of effects flying off in every direction. The inventory can be pretty complicated to navigate sometimes when you have lots of items."
Lastly, not cancelling out the thought entirely, Berger did tease that Remote Play support for the PS4 version of Diablo 3 is something that Blizzard is still thinking about.
"So it would be a little bit more of stretch. It's kind of percolating in the back of our mind, but we don't really have any plans right now,” he added.
Diablo 3 for PlayStation 4 is currently scheduled for release in 2014.
