Ten Years Ago Diablo 4 Considered a Shift Towards Batman Arkham Series While Ignoring Key Genre Rules
Diablo 4 as a roguelike variation on Batman: Arkham with permanent death? Yes, that's exactly the idea the Reaper of Souls director had for the series before leaving Blizzard.
The Diablo series could have been enriched with a roguelike game with combat like in the Batman: Arkham series. This is indicated by information obtained by journalist Jason Schreier and provided in his new publication: the book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, as pointed out by Wired.
Diablo: Arkham Sanctuary
It is almost obvious that the concept of the new Diablo had to change at least partially during the development. Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 are separated by over 10 years, 3 generations of consoles, and a lot of games, including hack'n'slash titles (like Path of Exile). In addition, work on the game was to begin almost immediately after the release of the Reaper of Souls expansion in 2013.
According to Schreier, the new Diablo after the third installment started its life as project Hades – a game heavily inspired by Rocksteady's Batman series. The isometric view would be replaced by an over-the-shoulder camera, and the combat would be more spectacular ("punchier"). What's more, Hades was supposed to include a permadeath system.
The project was directed by Josh Mosqueira, who gained recognition from fans of the series as the director of Reaper of Souls.
Co-op issues
Even disregarding the potential disappointment of some fans (who might not tolerate the change of genre), Blizzard quickly encountered problems with the implementation of this concept. One of the ideas was to include slow-motion effects during hand-to-hand combat hits, which in theory was supposed to give the fight the desired impressiveness. According to the convention of the Batman: Arkham series, enemies would surround the hero, and countering attacks in this series is accompanied by the slow-motion effect.
Except that at the same time it was supposed to work in co-op mode as well, because Hades It was also supposed to allow for cooperative play. So how do you deal with the fact that one player's actions will slow down time? And how to solve this in a way that doesn't spoil anyone's fun?
Hades and necromancer
Apparently, Mosqueira couldn't find the answers to these questions and was showing up at the studio office less and less frequently. When Blizzard's management took a look at Hades following his departure from the company in July 2016, they were dissatisfied with the progress and saw no chance of completing the project without its former director. That's why the project was cancelled and work on Diablo 4 essentially restarted from scratch.
Interestingly, the developers had no reason to complain. Left to their own devices, the creators organized internal "game jams", during which they exchanged ideas. The result of this was the design of the necromancer class, which was added to Diablo 3 as part of the last DLC: Rise of the Necromancer.
Meanwhile, in Diablo 4, they decided to abandon overly bold experiments and opted for the good old Diablo in the hack'n'slash convention. Not that the fourth installment didn't anger the fans when it was released (including the expansion, although some fans seem to be criticizing Blizzard more than the expansion), but that's probably nothing compared to how players could react to the complete change in gameplay concept that Mosqueira planned.
