Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred Trailer Reaction from Game Dev

The first major expansion for Diablo 4 is here and it is called Vessel of Hatred. Join Mike York Senior Animator and Game Developer as he takes a deep dive into this trailer admiring every frame of this beautiful cinematic from Blizzard.
Diablo 4 has some incredible cinematics and trailers and this might be the best one yet.
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[@joshwallaceart]

Absolutely incredible work from the guys at Blizzard Cinematics. As a Character Artist working in this industry, my jaw hit the floor when I first watched this trailer. The Characters, the Environments, the FX and CFX, the Lighting and Compositing!! Everything is at such an incredible high level. People definitely don't realize what a big accomplishment this trailer is!

[@nikoreva2078]

The trailer is awesome! I hope to see more cinematics of this quality in the game.

[@MrPseidon]

Blizzard never made a bad cinematic

[@ItzMeWill]

I read an article about the work that went into the first Diablo 4 opening cinematic "By Three They Come".. The modeling supervisor confirmed that everything was handcrafted, including the facial animation. They used real actors for animation and facial references and were provided concept art.. but no facial motion capture..They said from a stylistic point of view. They don't want to do photorealism but were striving for hyper-realism.. I imagine the same work went into this one

[@asbjrnfossmo1589]

They're sure as hell pushing that limit. The "Not photo-realistic" one, that is.

[@TheEvilTaffyapple]

So refreshing to see the reaction of someone who works in the industry. I'm so used to see console-wars, negative opinions, etc., on KZbin, it was so wholesome to come across someone who makes games just revelling in the craft of what Blizzard made.

[@thebustermonkey]

I almost fell off the chair when i watched it for the first time! You can tell how proud they are of the tech since they stay close up to the girls most of the trailer! Such a great achievement by all the teams!

[@mpetrie]

One of the most impressive parts of the animation for me was the mother’s thumb pad. Watch the pad of her thumb when she caresses her face. There is an ever so slight shifting of her thumb pad as she does it. Amazing level of detail.

[@YorkReacts]

Yup same here that caress on the face by her mother was top notch. I remember a few years ago when Pixar was explaining tech like this they had when one character could push up against the skin of another.

[@johnaldjensen4617]

I'd say The War Within trailer had incredible facial detail as well, but then again, it was also a trailer made by Blizzard lol

[@YorkReacts]

Yup that one was amazing as well. I’ve watched it like 20 times internally dissecting every frame of that gorgeous trailer. We used to deep dive like this at an old company I used to work at.

[@KathrynSkorpil]

@@YorkReacts It's all the same team who did both :)

[@NerdishNature]

Usually I hold these cinematics to the SWTOR trailers from ILM and not many come close - but this one is right up there in quality or even better. So much work

[@YorkReacts]

@@NerdishNature yeah this one was very impressive to me. One of the best I’ve ever seen. Breathtaking some of the details and hard work that went into this. Simply a masterpiece in 3d art and gaming

[@stefanboehle9682]

Its 2024.. im playing blizzard games since Wc2/Sc1 .. And for me it was always like " Oh new blizzard game? GIMME THAT TRAILER " .. Trailers,ingame cinematics etc.. its always such a blessing . I hope they pay that team enough, because they deserve it big time.

[@tartwurk609]

As a fellow artist. Man i really appreciate you actually appreciating how much work went into this cinematic .

[@YorkReacts]

Yes this one really knocked it out of the park. Soooooo good! Props to everyone involved. Their shots will be gorgeous on any demo reel

[@fred420]

Blizzard are THE BEST in the industry when it comes to pre-rendered cinematics... They are so far on another level is ridiculous and beautiful..

[@ConnorWoog]

Thanks for your reaction to this trailer, Mike! I am an avid fan of this franchise and an artist myself, and it's very refreshing to see your passion for this art form and all the work that went into this trailer. Now play some Diablo IV!!!

[@0gnomer]

thanks for providing your perspective as a developer, would be neat if blizz releases a making-of vid...very proud of the team for reaching new heights! 🖤

[@mihavovk]

I was really amazed when I only noticed on my 3rd watch, that where she's being held at around 12:50 in your video is the chest cavity and those spores on the sides are actually the lungs inflating and deflating as Mephisto (or Diablo? not sure) is breathing and she represents the heart. It's insanely good storytelling and just hints that she'll be a vesel for the next prime evil somehow in the story.

[@angryducklinginstitution76]

York, I think this would be an excellent opportunity to bring up the debate about the capabilities/inabilities of AI. How were some of the specific nuances and details you pointed out designed, and how do you think the artists at Blizzard came to adopt, fine-tune and harness such creative skill and a mindset for detail? How can we artists hope to teach our audiences to truly recognize and appreciate the entirety of the creative process? I myself have recently taken to using some of the weekly meetings I have with some of my social workers to watch movies and/or play video games. Whenever I delve into the intricate details of how I think each individual respective product was creatively designed (e.g. elements of mise-en-scene; costume design; stage business; how characters on screen are framed in relation to the architecture found on stage/film set/within the game world, etc.). What I often find is that my social workers (just like any member of the general populace untrained in the myriad ways of the creative arts) tend to focus only on aspects such as the overall story, memorable one-liners spoken by specific characters, etc. You want to talk about how difficult it is to make the oily water in this Diablo IV DLC trailer look so surreal - can you break it down for us, maybe provide an entire separate video on the various properties of water and oil when it comes to animation and why such properties in real life can be difficult to mimick in the world of graphical arts? How do you think the realness of the oily water plays along with the quivering of the protagonist's lips or other facial expressions that you pointed out in this video? How do all of the small little intricate details that you pointed out in this video further help to tell and embellish the rest of the story in this trailer, helping to compliment the rest of the images that we see in this trailer? Heck, might the fact that the developers decided the main protagonist should have a mole placed prominently on her face have anything at all to do with the oily elements of the water? Especially given the myriad extreme closeup shots of parts of the character's facial features that seem prominent in this trailer. Does the mixing of colors seen at the very opening/establishing shot of this trailer (in which case we're treated with a top-down view of a mixture of colors/elements such as the red wood of the boat piercing through not only the black oily swirls found throughout the undulations of the water but the tint of black shadow the boat embeds into the water at the same exact time. These colors combined seem to work to create the exact blend of dark maroon that is the face of the devil/witch lady found in this trailer (think of the veins of the devil lady's hands slowly creeping alongside the face of the protagonist as well). In that light, as moles are oftentimes considered as small little imperfections of the skin (even to the point where some human beings attempt to remove such "imperfections" via the use of cosmetics and technology), could the sole mole on the protagonist's face symbolically represent a point of entryway for the demonic lady into the facial design of our protagonist, given how everything else in the trailer seems to be mired down in death and black muck (the water itself, the dead fish in the water, even both the blue crystal shard and boatman eventually end up mired in thick black muck). Could certain elements such as the camera angles, lighting effects, textures of the characters' sweat and skin be used to convey a sense of depth and heaviness to the mole? I think it would be beneficial if you were to put out some videos that delve into and put a real educational clinic out there in the name of building and maintaining an eye for detail, curating a creative mindset, and practicing and honing one's knack for problem-solving and intuitive design. I think these are the kinds of details the general populace takes for granted, especially given nowadays with the up-ramping of AI and debate of AI's ability to adhere to such detail and develop such creative thinking design processes and skills. I for one am someone who wants to help design AI solely for helping and assisting with the creative process, adding to it instead of flat out trying to replace the creative process, including the intricate art of individual human ideas and ingenuity that contribute to the whole process as well. Sorry for the ridiculously long message, but I think it would be a good idea for you to connect all the dots here, perhaps even going into a spiel about how technology needs to work hand-in-hand with the more creative and rustic elements of our world, and not flat out overlook, disrespect and replace established natural processes of our world. Keep up the amazing work on your channel, and I'm so proud and honored to hear how the ingenuity and work of others is able help fuel your own creative drive and aspirations!

[@musicxxa6678]

im so captivated by this trailer it's insane. simple yet extremely strong trailer.

[@shalirajan7585]

Sir . Please help animation job apply rock star bangalore dream job joji rs

[@Redrogue4711]

No more uncanny valley. This is by far the most realistic animation I have ever seen. Blizzard Animation should be making movies.

[@YorkReacts]

I agree this might be the first time when something didn’t feel like the Uncanny valley. Beautiful work by the blizzard team

[@celestialspartan1176]

That’s the power of Mephisto, the Lord Of Hatred, at work. Fun fact! According to the team behind this trailer, this was merely a SCALED BACK version. So, there’s a cut out there that’s far more brutal than what we’re seeing here.

[@YorkReacts]

Ohh wow didn’t know that awesome fun fact

[@draquablu2030]

Have you seen Diablo 4's Lilith vs Inarius cinematic? Another one of Blizzard animation team's master pieces, I highly recommend it. You're gonna absolutely love it and i would love to see you react to it!

[@YorkReacts]

@@draquablu2030 holy shit I just started watching it and hell yeah I need to react to this and watch the whole thing. Looks incredible! Thanks for the suggestion. By the way if you ever want to recommend a video for me to check out I have a discord channel and have a section for KZbin channnel ideas where people post stuff for me to react to. Feel free to join and post more stuff in the future and join chat some great people in there who all love games and don’t take things to seriously haha 🤣 would love to see you in there

[@darrenameyork2679]

Cutscenes in Diablo series have always been 🔥

[@JayTheRed8]

The transition from the demonic realm back to the boat is insane!!!

[@YorkReacts]

Yeah loved that!!

[@onura549]

100th commet from me :) this trailer was amazing! just amazing... i am shocked! how is it possible?

[@YorkReacts]

Congrats 🎉🎈🍾 hell yeah

[@plotcoalition]

Seeing york geek out for 15 minutes was great 😂

[@PortugueseBadman]

Certainly the best CGI trailer but ironically not reflective of the actual gameplay 😂 I love your reaction.

[@kevinsims5791]

The other d4 cinematics are of the same quality. Absolutely amazing

[@zenithquasar9623]

I don't know if it is true, but as far as I know, they don't use extensive mocapping or face capture. Like, they must be, but it is rough and it is mostly basically "hand animated".

[@YorkReacts]

Yeah that’s what I know as well but now I think they might be using some sort of mocap for the face in some regards. Or they are just taking video of these performances and matching them the best they can with keyframing. Then again that takes sooooooooooo much longer then the new meta human and other facial mocap processes. But I don’t think they care to much how long it takes them to make these trailer they got the money and time haha 😆

[@EL_Gaming935]

Yoo I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND your geek out! And I 100% agree Best looking game trailer I've ever seen in my life! Like, I'm super excited for bo6, and I've never played Diablo, but this trailer IS SOO GOOD (and genuinely a lil creepy) that I'm definitely gonna get it, it looks super interesting! Props to blizzard 👏 5⭐️ trailer. Sadly unless bo6 fixes everything, and with the direction cod zombies is taking, we'll never have trailers, or cutscenes like these. Smh

[@retrowrath9374]

It's so good considering it's done in UE5, used to have to wait hours or days for a render like that, now it's done in realtime. My uncle used to sit on his amiga rendering simple stuff taking hours in the 90s, now we have Path Tracing games and in UE5. I started learning UE5, always been interested in graphics tech, tech demos and such since the 90s, Babylon 5 and it's amazing CGI.

[@YorkReacts]

Is it though? Was this done in Unreal Engine? Is there a link or article you can point me to or video or something that says that

[@YorkReacts]

I’m genuinely interested I’m thinking this was done in house with rendering out of Maya ect but it would be even more impressive if this was all done and rendered in engine

[@retrowrath9374]

@@YorkReacts You gave the impression it was done in UE5

[@xoxar1]

Yeah Cinematics for Blizzard games are always nice, wish the Cinemativs would be a hint how good the game is. Sad its not like this anymore

[@R4ZORLIGHT]

Blizzard and cinematics, thats something they always deliver. Some scenes were really disturbing (in a good horror way). Now if they could match the quality of the cinematic with the rest of the game...

[@ReapersBeware]

Stunning

[@joely6699]

If you haven't already you should react to the Inarus vs Lilith cinematic. It's epic.

[@mfdosd]

Blizzard with the best cgi since the 90s

[@PxNxWxGxW]

Its a good trailer im not gonna lie. Warframe has some great Cinematic trailers as well.

[@richmon4510]

What happened with Fable reaction 👀?

[@YorkReacts]

Fable ? Send me the link I will check it out maybe I forgot haha 😆

[@neil2242]

Is it weird that I'm very impressed by dead fish physics?

[@YorkReacts]

No. It weird at all you are one of us! One of us! Haha 🤣

[@nicksanfilippo9513]

the trailer is nice and dark as i would hope for in a Diablo trailer, but that voice actress is fantastic, and those screams....

[@YorkReacts]

Yeah this one was truely incredible !!

[@producekyro]

We’re hitting that pinnacle where we really can’t tell what’s real or CGI

[@YorkReacts]

We really are soooooo close wowza this trailer is proof of that. I would love to watch a film like this

[@user-zi5lp9fq1r]

I got one question just one question do they have plans for a mmorpg adaptive platform so that way it can have a point system and a better lvl limit honestly I max out too quickly

[@YorkReacts]

I’m not sure but I hope they implement mmo stuff in there it’s only a plus for the gamers

[@ThoraxFTW]

how come u never reacted to Inarius VS Lilith diablo 4 cinematics that is also dope !!!

[@Delebriel]

Not realistic style but all the Overwatch cinematics are also masterpieces. Although watching all of them takes like an hour or more cos there are just so many. Naturally they don't even come close to this, but that is only because they have a completely different Pixarlike style to it. I think Diablo 4 cinematics can only be dethroned by other Diablo 4 cinematics.

[@YorkReacts]

Yeah I remember seeing those cinematics and shorts from blizzard on Overwatch. I should revisit those and do a deep dive

[@Yurka079]

It's a crime they're putting out these cutting edge cinematics and not doing more in-depth behind the scenes videos on their creative process.

[@SuzakuX]

They used to do behind the scenes DVDs for a lot of the collectors editions of their games, but unfortunately not since BFA. I recall the one for Legion, they mentioned it was the first time they ever used motion capture, but they only used it for background characters and to capture camera motions; Varian was all hand-animated.

[@joshwallaceart]

There are actually a few talks where the Blizzard Cinematic team shared some of the process that went into creating their cinematics. There were a few talks at previous Zbrush Summits and some Diablo FX Breakdowns on the Houdini channel.

[@Merknilash]

Trailer would make you think this game is seriously dark, and then you see there's some goat-kid for a mercenary in game.

[@themissingpeace7956]

Blizzard's cinematic team always does a great job. Unfortunately I absolutely hate Neyrelle as a character lol

[@mgkpraesi]

Its very good.

[@shinta8847]

They make simply the best trailers, we need a whole Diablo movie in this quality but no live action.

[@YorkReacts]

Right OMG that would be Amazing!! And very expensive and would take a very long time long time to make haha 🤣

[@YorkReacts]

Ohh wait live action hmmmm yes I’d watch that as well

[@GfoxSim]

I'm not sure if you've done it already but please react to The Matrix Awakens tech demo. It blew me away when it became available.

[@misberave]

Man i hope the rumors are true that they gonna make an animated Diablo movie or series in the same style as their cutscenes! But isnt CGI easier to make in regards of animations? I always thought they look much more realistic than ingame

[@YorkReacts]

Oooo I didn’t even know of the rumors. From my experience this type of animation and quality takes lots of time and tons of money. Definitely not easier per se just less limitations.

[@reinoldi1097]

why "corridor crew" never react to something like this xD

[@christopherchuauhang4829]

Their cinematics are way better than Hollywood animated movies lol

[@YorkReacts]

In some cases I agree man these cinematics are a work of art

[@Mike__P]

captured on PS4?

[@bagpuss121]

I Have Said For Years That Blizzard Take Some Beating When It Comes Down To Making Trailers & Cinematics , And Blizzard Have Done It Again. .

[@YorkReacts]

Yeah they always amaze me with their trailers. Soooo good

[@ThemeDesign]

Unreal engine 5 cinematic?

[@YorkReacts]

I don’t think they are using Unreal 5 but I could be wrong.

[@KickstarterRadio1024]

Dude you must watch the Diablo 4 big fight.... Astorios vs Lillith

[@jiggylookback]

Bro did you react to Perfect Dark yet?

[@YorkReacts]

Noooooo what I didn’t see that yet!?!? I have to check it out

[@jiggylookback]

@@YorkReacts if ever our worlds collide that’s it. Go look it up!!

[@jiggylookback]

@@YorkReacts if ever our worlds collided this is it. Go check it out!!

[@zuz2366]

React to assassin’s creed shadows gameplay!!

[@SPProduction02]

Now i get why the end of the campaign was soso (at least for my liking) cant wait to play it :) p.s = thats her mom, not granma (apologies for being the nazi guy lol)

[@YorkReacts]

Haha yeah I say grandma cause she is old but I got it eventually after watching the whole thing. Such a cool story. Loved this trailer wowza!! Appreciate you stopping by

[@SPProduction02]

@@YorkReacts no problem man,love your content :D

[@Adam-082]

To bad the game isn't incredible lol At least we will "hopefully" always get great cinematics from Blizzard.

[@YorkReacts]

So do they insert cinematics like this into the game as apart of the story ? As you play… never played a Diablo game before

[@Airbag888]

Cinematics.. the only thing blizzard excel at these days

[@bemindful924]

Blizzard and Kojima Productions make the best trailers. The rest seem a bit generic imho.

[@InfoRanker]

Dude, if you think this is good you should watch the original Diablo 4 cinematic from Blizzcon. It's much better than this even.

[@YorkReacts]

Ahh man I need to check that out then

[@DevilWolf000]

Yea but the game is weak as hell.

[@YorkReacts]

But the trailer is fire! Haha

[@geoffreylim6993]

good trailer, bad game