In a new interview with David Brevik, he talks about his videogame legacy and his work on the Diablo franchise. Brevik states that he has mixed emotions about the Diablo franchise these days. He says he's "excited that there's a huge audience for Diablo" but there are mixed emotions "because I'm not involved".In the interview, Brevik goes on to share his thoughts on Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 Resurrected.
"I told Blizzard straight to their face about some of the things they did with Diablo 3 that I felt were not really in the right direction and they changed a lot of them.
"I feel like with Diablo 4 in a lot of ways, it feels a lot like a game I would design. In fact, I almost did design a similar game, it's called Marvel heroes that had a lot of things they were talking about that they were going to incorporate. It's an ARPG with some MMO elements.
"That part of it was not only the original vision for Diablo 2, we were going to have guilds and something called BattleNet town in Diablo 2 that never made it into the game. Instead of going into a chat room, you went right into the world and it would be more immersive. That was largely inspired by Everquest which I was playing a lot at the time.
"I think that all of these things that come together that make me excited that there's more Diablo, but I'm not involved at all and I have no say in it.
"As for Diablo 2 Resurrected, I'm super excited about what they're doing. I think that team is super talented. The questions they have answered, it seems like they said all the right things in my opinion.
"When you['re doing a remaster there are some hard choices you have to make as a company because the game is 20 years old and games have changed. what do you change? How much to do change?
"For instance, Stamina. Stamina in Diablo 2 is a kind of useless stat. It's important at the beginning and then eventually it's not even a factor in the game. So why have the stat at all as it punishes the new users? You could see how that would be something they would be interested in changing.
"Then, we start to cross this line on how much do we change? Do we start rebalancing a few of the items? Do we start adding some new items? Should we have instanced loot or not?
"They are kind of in a tough spot but they are handling it in the right way which is, 'we're just changing the graphics'. There are a couple of minor tweaks they are making like auto-gold pickup which you can turn off. Getting rid of muling with more stash space.
"I'm excited about it, it seems they are largely honoring Diablo 2 and keeping the gameplay which has held up for 20 years and introducing a whole bunch of new people to the world of Diablo. I think it's the right choice and a bunch of people will be experiencing it for the first time."
You can watch the full interview below.
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