Why did Blizzard choose an art style for Diablo III that would anger so many fans? I got answers in Paris last weekend before people were really asking the question.
And I know of at least 14,000 people whod like an answer. Those are the thousands of diehard Diablo fans who have signed a petition against the games new art direction (with more than 1,000 signatures added every hour).
When I asked lead producer Keith Lee about Diablo IIIs new art style at the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, he explained why Blizzard went in that direction.
Some context first, if youre not familiar with the old Diablo titles: they featured dark, shadowy landscapes and dungeons (in which the player-characters needed a radius of light to see), and an overall realistic art style. With Diablo III, the environments and textures are noticeably more vibrant and colorful, both inside and outside dungeons. Blaming the influence of World of Warcraft, the petitioners complain that the game is too cartoonish with unrealistic elements and outside scenarios with vivid colors, beautiful forests with colorful vegetation, shinny [sic] and beautiful waterfalls where even rainbows take place. (The petitioners have a full laundry list of complaints and suggestions here.)
So this is what Lee had to say about the art direction when we spoke in Paris: One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for Diablo III is the fact that color is your friend. We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast. A great analogy is like in Lord of the Rings not everything is dark. It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesnt allow you to have a lot of contrast.
He continued: Diablo I and Diablo II are darker, and I think that the one of the main reasons why is the fact that in Diablo I, youre basically in a dungeon the whole time. And in contrast to Diablo III, youll be exploring outdoors, youll be in dungeons, youll be experiencing so many different areas. We want to bring as much variety as we can when youre playing the game so that youre excited to check out new environments. We dont want everything to look the same and thats really what were trying to aim for.
What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus. Its a stylized feel and in that sense, its very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. Its just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that Diablo III is going to be better in so many different ways. Were just building and improving upon the the first and second Diablo games.
I also asked Lee about how and when the dev team will take fan feedback into account. He wouldnt go into specifics, but said:
Were very involved, because everyones very passionate about our games. Blizzard employees, we spend a lot of time actually iterating on [the game], and so in terms of the next phase, what well try to do is a proof on concept on lot of different gameplay aspects. And we really want to get as much feedback as possible so that we can improve on the game and ensure that we meet Blizzard quality for our fans and for ourselves as players.
