The original Diablo 3. 13 games that sunk their dev teams
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Diablo 3 is another game that was developed for many long years. Opinions on whether it was worth it are strongly divided. Nevertheless, it turns out that the Diablo 3 that arrived in stores was not the first attempt to follow up the legendary part two. In 2000, the production process of a new game about the hunt for the Lord of Terror began. The Blizzard North studio, the creators of the original, were supposed to be entrusted with the whole thing. Ultimately, they didn't finish the game. The branch was closed in 2005, and the unreleased project went six feet under along with it.
Diablo III as we know it was created by Blizzard's central branch, Irvine. We don't know how many elements of the original were preserved in the final version of the game. None of the employees want to reveal anything about it. It's only known that they originally wanted Diablo III to draw handfuls from the MMO genre. Max Schaefer said in a 2011 podcast that "We thought about the big community in the game, not about four or eight-player sessions."
Interestingly, we only learned about the original after 2008, when the continuation of the series was officially announced for the first time. Developers admitted then that work on part three began in early 2000s, carried out by late Blizzard North. We can only wonder what Diablo III would be like if it was developed by them. Meanwhile, there's no studio and no game – who knows, maybe that's good? Or maybe quite the opposite? We'll never find out.
It's worth adding that Blizzard North was founded in 1993 as Condor studio and was taken over by Blizzard while still working on the first Diablo. It was later responsible for the hit second installment of the series. After the studio closed, some of its employees started working on various Blizzard games. However, many others had to find a new job.
