Diablo 5 Will Rethink Monster Level Scaling From Diablo 4

Blizzard Entertainment is rethinking one of the more divisive mechanics in recent Diablo games. Game director Joe Shely has confirmed that Diablo 5 will take a different approach to monster level scaling, with the goal of making players feel noticeably stronger as their characters progress rather than facing enemies that constantly keep pace with them.

The Problem With Automatic Scaling

Monster level scaling has been a fixture in the Diablo series since Diablo 3, and Diablo 4 carried the mechanic forward. The idea is straightforward: as your character grows in power, the enemies around them grow too, keeping combat from becoming trivial. The downside, as many players have pointed out, is that the system undercuts the core appeal of the genre. Finding a powerful new weapon or hitting a level milestone should feel like a meaningful leap forward, but when monsters immediately match that growth, the reward is diluted.

Diablo 2 handled things differently. Each area of the game had a fixed level range, meaning players could outgrow certain zones entirely and feel like gods before moving into harder territory. That sense of earned dominance is something a vocal portion of the Diablo community has been asking Blizzard to revisit for years.

What Shely Said

Speaking in a group interview covered by PC Gamer, Shely acknowledged that automatic scaling can work against the experience Diablo is supposed to deliver. “Diablo is a game that, in many ways, is about your character getting stronger and when the monsters get stronger at the same time, especially outside of your control… You’ve filled the experience bar, you get stronger, you should feel awesome now, a wave of light pulses out from you, a bunch of monsters die,” he said. “That’s wonderful, but then you’re going to go hit some more monsters and you should feel powerful. And sometimes automatic scaling can get in the way of that feeling, which is so core to it.” Shely stopped short of detailing exactly what the new system will look like, noting that the team has not fully worked through the specifics yet, but was clear that a change is coming.

Part of a Broader Return to Diablo 2 Roots

The scaling discussion fits into a wider picture of Blizzard pulling inspiration from Diablo 2 for the fifth entry. PC Gamer also reports that Diablo 5 will bring back procedurally generated areas, meaning dungeons and open world zones will look different on each visit, another signature feature from Diablo 2 that was largely absent from more recent entries. Diablo 5 was announced at BlizzCon and is currently estimated to be about three years away, with no gameplay footage shown so far.

Sources: PC Gamer