If you’ve been fortunate (unfortunate?) sufficient to have been graced by the presence of Diablo 4’s notorious The Butcher, you’ll have seen he appeared bigger than you anticipated. Or maybe he grew in dimension as you fought, doubtless in useless, to outlive.
It turns on the market’s an evidence for this Giant Butcher, and it suggests all enemies are equally inclined to enlargement.
Our story begins with a Reddit submit from a confused IronHeart_777, who ran right into a Giant Butcher whereas killing demons in a Nightmare Dungeon. Alongside posting a screenshot of this bigger than digital life demon, IronHeart_777 requested: “So uh… anybody know why we discovered a Giant Butcher? He appeared this massive…”
Strange! But there’s extra. Icy-Veins subsequently reported on a video from streamer Vinsonte displaying one Diablo 4 participant stunned by a Butcher encounter, however this time the imposing beast grew greater over the course of the battle, beginning off default dimension earlier than rising massive sufficient to dominate the display.
These participant stories sparked some good old school theory-crafting from the Diablo 4 neighborhood. The present idea places the blame on a dungeon modifier (affix) appropriately known as Avenger.
The Avenger affix description textual content states killing a monster enrages monsters close to it, making them deal extra harm. This textual content fails to say additionally making enemies greater, and but that is what seems to be taking place. Perhaps Blizzard left this line out intentionally so as to shock gamers and spark a little bit of neighborhood enjoyable. Perhaps it’s a bug. With Diablo 4, it’s laborious to know.
It is troublesome to see this impact in motion on the overwhelming majority of enemies, which begin small and enhance in dimension by a tiny quantity with every close by kill. But with the already massive Butcher, the impact is extra noticeable. At least, that’s what the idea suggests.
If the Avenger affix is the reason for the Giant Butcher, it additionally suggests one thing fairly superb about how the enemy truly works. It could skulk round close to sufficient to the participant to set off Avenger from defeated enemies however, and that is the essential half, off-screen. As IronHeart_777 put it, the Giant Butcher “was there (however off the display) slowly powering up into his ultimate kind”.
What a terrifying thought! Perhaps the Butcher doesn’t at all times spawn on high of the participant and begin combating instantly, however typically seems off-screen, watching, ready, biding his time, getting ever so barely greater with every close by kill, earlier than exploding into view to terrify, and possibly kill, the participant. The Butcher’s unsuspecting sufferer would by no means know they have been feeding the demon all alongside. That does sound just like the sort of factor the Butcher would do, in spite of everything.
Add this enjoyable Giant Butcher idea to the pile. Since launch Diablo 4 gamers have achieved some fairly out-there stuff, together with convincing themselves rats result in higher loot, trying to find a secret cow stage Blizzard insists doesn’t exist, and operating by means of 1,270 cellars in simply three days to “see what occurs”.
Diablo 4 launched massive, changing into Blizzard’s fastest-selling recreation ever. It can also be a success with critics, and, typically, has gone down nicely with followers. However, the price of Diablo 4’s microtransactions has raised eyebrows, and, surprisingly, Whoopi Goldberg known as on Blizzard to launch Diablo 4 on Mac.
Check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start out monitoring your progress as you play.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can attain Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
