Original Diablo creator has “very mixed emotions” about the third game

Everybody has an opinion about Diablo III, and as it turns out original Diablo and Diablo II creator David Brevik isn’t a big fan of the latest game in the series.

In an interview with IncGamers, the former Blizzard North boss explained that Diablo III is a “very different game” to the one he’d have made, and that the closure of the studio and subsequent loss of core designers negatively impacted the second sequel.

“When Blizzard North shut down they lost a ton of experience with why the action RPG works and what about it works. That’s really difficult to recover from,” he said. “They didn’t have the experience of people that knew it well. This is why you do things with random levels for example, and so when you lose that experience you are going to create a very different experience in the end than we would have created.”

As such, he feels some sense of self-satisfied schadenfreude about the controversy surrounding Diablo III.

“I have very mixed emotions about it. On one hand I am sad that people haven’t enjoyed Diablo because it’s a love, a passion, and it’s obvious people still have a giant love and passion for Diablo and they are speaking out about it because they have such love for it. That makes me feel great,” he said.

“I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry – you see it with Call of Duty and things like that – when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry.”

Quite so. After Blizzard North closed up, Brevik went on to co-found Flagship Studios, which shipped the, uh, similiarly controversial Hellgate: London. He now works for Gazillion, the people developing Marvel Heroes.