Blizzard’sDiabloseries has been at the center of a ton of scrutiny since the harsh community backlash to the announcement of mobile gameDiablo Immortalat BlizzCon 2018. WhileI think hype culture is partially to blame,I can still agree that Blizzard probably should have unveiledDiablo Immortalalongside another project, namelyDiablo IV, which Kotakupreviously claimedwas in development.
Following this whirlwind of controversy, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier publishedThe Past, Present, And Future OfDiablotoday, giving us an in depth look at the current state of theDiabloseries and Team 3 a Blizzard. While he was able to confirm thatDiablo IV, currently codenamedFenrir, does exist, he also interestingly highlighted some notableDiablo-related projects that were canceled at Blizzard over the last five years.
Specifically, he brings up the fact thatDiablo III’ssecond expansion and aDark Soulslike project were canned by Blizzard. When it comes to the canceledDiablo IIIexpansion, an anonymous developer claimed that it was apparently abandoned because the higher-ups at Blizzard had deemedDiablo IIIa failure before the release of theReaper of Soulsexpansion, which many believedrevitalized the game:
“What they told the team was, ‘You’ve finishedReaper of Souls, it’s really good. But we think the best thing for the IP is to move toDiablo IVin whatever form that’ll be.' The overall sense on the team, at least in my impression, was that there was a vote of no confidence from the executives. They thoughtDiablo IIIwas a giant fuck-up…
The perception overall was that management thought, ‘This team really screwed up'. They could’ve held off a few months and seen howReaperdid, but in their mind [Diablo III] was irredeemable.”
Another anonymous developer pointed out that people at Team 3 were very disappointed by this decision, as a second expansion forDiablo IIIcould’ve honed in on what made the game great:
“A lot of people felt stunned by it. I think a lot of them felt like, ‘We made mistakes onDiablo III, but we learned and we madeReaperto show what we could do. We have fixed it, andReaper’s really good.’ I think a lot of people felt like we’d figured it out and we know how to do this, and expansion two, whatever it would’ve been, would’ve been the highest expression of that… To have them pull the plug without really seeing howReaperdid really stung.”
According to Kotaku and its sources, after this second expansion was canceled, many developers from Team 3 were scattered to other projects around Blizzard, with a small team coming up with what would be next for the franchise. At this point, development on a project codenamedHadesbegan, led byReaper of SoulsDirector Josh Mosqueira, and it was apparently quite different from what’s come to be expected from the series.
Hadeswas “aDiablotake onDark Souls…[and] would use an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective.” Kotaku even says Blizzard was considering not calling this project Diablo IVdue to how different it was. Unfortunately, its development was riddled with problems so the project was scrapped in mid-2016. Afterwards, Blizzard shifted the to work onRise of the NecromancerforDiablo IIIas well as what would ultimately becomeDiablo IV/Project Fenrir.
Ultimately, one veteran Blizzard employee stated how the series would be in a somewhat better, or at least more focused, place right now if Blizzard hadn’t made the decision to cancel that secondDiablo IIIexpansion:
“I remember a lot of us looking at each other and saying, ‘Man, if we had just done that second expansion instead of losing half the team as a result of the cancellation, and then all of the personnel changes, management changes, then this walk down the road of Hades… If we hadn’t done any of that and had just focused on doing a solid third act forDiablo, it’d be out by now.”
Meanwhile, Blizzard seems very stoic in response to these canceled projects. In a statement given to Kotaku, they revealed that only about 50% of Blizzard’s projects see the light of day as they only want to put out titles that meet their bar of quality and that many canceled projects end up being canceled or incorporating into other things likeOverwatchorWorld of Warcraft:
“As far as game cancellations, we see that as a strength—a reflection of our commitment to quality, and how we’ve always operated. Historically, we’ve launched about 50% of the total projects we’ve worked on over the past three decades—those are the ones we consider representative of Blizzard quality.
Not shipping a game is never an easy decision to make, but it has always been the right decision for us. CancelingTitanled us toOverwatch, and as another example, cancelingNomadled us toWorld of Warcraft.”
Whatever you may think aboutDiablo Immortal, Project Fenrir, or just Blizzard’s business practices in general, it is certainly interesting to get a more in depth glimpse at some interestingDiabloprojects that never saw the light of day. Hopefully,Project Fenrirturns out well, even if its a ways off, and pleases fans currently angered byDiablo Immortal.
In the meantime, players can just continue to focus on the complete version ofDiablo IIIthat is currently available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
