Blizzard might just be embracing the open-world formula for the fourth installment of the 'Diablo' series set to launch in 2023.

"One of the concerns about putting 'open world' in a big neon sign and flashing that sign is that people have that notion of Breath of the Wild, 'oh, it's completely organic and I can go anywhere and do anything,'" said general manager Rod Fergusson about where "Diablo 4" is going in an IGN interview.

What this means for players is that they'll be allowed more freedom and the option of playing in a "non-linear" manner. They won't necessarily have to stick to the story to get through the game, they can pause the story and come back to it when they want to.

"You can actually not pursue the story for a while, that's the nice thing about the open world," said Fergusson. "There's a lot of side quests, a lot of things you can do that aren't on the golden path."

This is a similarity shared with "Diablo 3," where players can switch game modes to enter an open world of sorts and complete bounties in exchange for gold, experience and miscellaneous items.

That doesn't mean that players won't have a guide, there is a story to it. It's just that the story itself is flexible, or, as Fergusson put it, "more of a branching story." Players will have the choice of how they play the major parts of the narrative, along with the chance to play them in different orders and experience vastly different results.

Game director Joe Shely said in the same IGN interview that they had actually had to tone down some of the content they had created for the title as it had become "too dense" for one game.

"As you're going through [the game world], there's lots of stuff to do, whether you're mounted or you're navigating through on foot," said Shely. "We actually had so much stuff that getting through it on a mount was challenging, and so we had to say, okay, let's make sure that the roads actually are connected to good places, are a good way to travel through this area so that you can get through, get to places that you're going expediently, and also have the opportunity to go off the path and see interesting things."

There has been no exact date for when "Diablo 4" will be released.

Blizzard Gaming