Diablo IV DirectStorage: Some data scientists discovered explicit references to the Microsoft DirectStorage API in Blizzard’s game files after beta playing Diablo IV in late March.

This disclosure spurred speculation that Diablo IV might be the second API-enabled game following Luminous Productions’ Forspoken, however, Blizzard never took note of this allusion, and nothing in the finished game indicated that this functionality was implemented. However, a Blizzard representative eventually responded to PC Gamer, stating that the functionality would be included in Diablo IV in the future.

As a component of the so-called Xbox Velocity Architecture, which combines hardware and software to “reinvent the traditional I/O system” and ultimately speed up load times, Microsoft DirectStorage made its debut on Xbox Series S|X consoles. Low latency, optimal prioritization, and fine-grained I/O queuing are all features of DirectStorage as a low-level API.

Diablo IV will eventually get DirectStorage Support

Microsoft declared fairly immediately that the API would be arriving on PCs, though it took some time. The developer preview was made available in July 2021, and version 1.0 was unveiled at GDC 2022. Microsoft worked on the API further, and version 1.1 was released in November. This release includes GPU-based decompression capability, which many developers have requested.

However, it wasn’t until January 2023 that PC gamers were able to put the technology to the test with the release of Forspoken. Even after the introduction of yet another API version (1.2) in April of this year, it remains the only PC game that supports DirectStorage.

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