I think I fell off the Diablo horse.
No surprises here: this past weekend’s Blizzard Worldwide Invitational saw the company announce the next game of their money-printing triumvirate of games with Diablo III. After a week of teasing via splash pages on the Blizzard web site, was there really any surprise? They had already announced WoW: Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft II: the only real thing left was the Diablo series.
The screens look exactly how I expected them to look like: a hi-res Diablo II. Which honestly is how I would handle the beloved franchise as to not be subjected to the ire of the millions and millions of Diablo fans. Myself one of them. If the original formula isn’t broke, why change it?
At the same time, I find myself to be a bit lukewarm to the announcement. My college days involved me playing a LOT of Diablo and Diablo II, getting totally immersed in the story and the lore. Undoubtedly, I will play through Diablo III to see the continuation of the storyline. However, I can’t help but feel that they’re hitting the same tried and true formula a little bit too well: the barbarian video was basically the previous game rendered in hi-res graphics. To Blizzard’s credit, the videos and screens look absolutely gorgeous. But at the same time, I do not see myself spending nearly as much time with Diablo III as I did with the previous games. Which has nothing to do with the quality of the game but rather the ground already seems well tread. And this is coming from a HUGE Blizzard fan.
Perhaps these feelings will change when I head to Blizzcon in October. But till then, I’m holding back the horses just a little bit.
What I would love to see from Blizzard is a return to some of their older franchises. How about modernized version of “The Lost Vikings”? How about venturing into the stealth action genre by officially resuming work on Starcraft:Ghost? Or…how about a new IP?
