Diablo 4's new Season 3 companion would have to be "horribly overpowered" for Blizzard to do anything
"There's breaking the game and breaking the game"
Diablo 4 Season of the Construct will feature the Seneschal, a robotic companion that can join the fight or heal and defend you. That definitely sounds like the kind of thing that could add a whole lot of power to your build, but Blizzard says it's unlikely to nerf the Seneschal unless things get absolutely ridiculous.
Since the Seneschal "won't exist outside of Season 3," designer Sean White explains in an interview with GamesRadar+, the devs can take wilder swings without worrying too much about game balance. "You know, I've always said that there's breaking the game and breaking the game. As long as it's not too horribly overpowered, we're likely to leave it alone. But again, I want to stress we'll take those on a case-by-case scenario because it depends on how much it breaks the game."
That's in keeping with recent comments from franchise GM Rod Fergusson, who said that Blizzard will "embrace," not insta-nerf, some busted Diablo 4 builds. According to White, the seasonal model gives the studio more freedom to let overpowered builds run wild for a time.
"The philosophy that Rod was talking about, it's more of a season-to-season model," White tells us. "If we find a build or an item or something that's like horribly broken, that's what seasons are for - trying new things. One of our goals is to shake up the meta, so it's not the same over and over. One class that might be overpowered one season may not be the next season, maybe another class is overpowered the next season. And honestly, that's fine. That's the fun. It's fun to play overpowered builds as long as it's not the same thing over and over."
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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.