Later this week, Videogamer the man behind the original Diablo and Diablo 2. While we await the release of the full interview, the team has shared a few intriguing excerpts, including Brevik’s critique of the fast-paced, instant-gratification style that dominates today’s ARPGs and MMOs, stating, “you’ve cheapened the whole experience.”
In another preview from the interview, Brevik delved into his original vision for Diablo 3 during its early planning stages, before his departure from Blizzard. Interestingly, some of his concepts share parallels with elements of Diablo 4 today, particularly its MMO-inspired features. However, Brevik explained that his approach would have taken a different direction.
“It ends up being different; I would have made different decisions than they made,” Brevik told Videogamer. “Like, I think a lot comes down to the way that they did, they do itemization or the way that they do their characters and things like that were kind of different directions than I think that I was focused on.”
I wanted more of… I think that one of the things that is most important about a particular MMO are the social aspects. And I think that focusing more on the social aspects of the MMO are things that from a game design perspective, encouraging social interactions is something that I think that I would have really leaned into.”
Early concepts of Diablo 3 have morphed into Diablo 4
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Diablo 3’s ambitious plans that never came to fruition. In Jason Schreier’s Play Nice: The Rise and Fall of Blizzard, which includes insights from David Brevik, it’s revealed that Diablo 3 was initially envisioned as an MMORPG heavily inspired by Ultima Online. The game was designed to feature large-scale multiplayer towns where hundreds of players could interact, congregating in central hubs before venturing into separate instances.
These early ideas bear a striking resemblance to what we now see in Diablo 4. However, at the time, Blizzard North struggled to realize this ambitious vision, particularly as Blizzard’s resources were increasingly funneled into the booming success of World of Warcraft. This led to Diablo 3 being significantly scaled back from its original concept.
“It wasn’t just an MMO”
“It was gonna be an ARPG with the same perspective and all of those kind of things, but just an MMO in terms of people in the world, and you’re running around the world and you see other people kind of thing, and you could group up and you were on a Shard and there were dungeons and things like that. It was much more like a cross between sort of like a World of Warcraft, but Diablo mix or whatever.” Brevik shares in the interview. He also goes on to discuss the Battle.net experience and incorporating that into a more immersive experience.
Asked if he would make that game today he responded “no.”
Where is David Brevik now and where can I hear the interview?
Brevik parted ways with Blizzard following its acquisition by Vivendi and the subsequent closure of Blizzard North. Today, he runs his own publishing company, Skystone Games, which focuses on supporting and publishing indie developers.
The VideoGamer podcast can be found on Spotify, and the episode goes live later this week.
