When Diablo 3 was announced, I for one expected the fans to fairly pee themselves with excitement. Color me surprised therefore when instead of lauding Blizzard's decision to extend the franchise the Diablo fans instead began a petition demanding that the art style be changed. Because, you know, a design team can never take a series in a new direction. Players were just not going to stomach a lighter, brighter Diablo, a Diablo where you might actually be able to see the beautiful environments in the game.
Well, yesterday designated Diablo 3 faceman Jay Wilson sat down with MTV, not only to reject the petition, but to turn the tables on the fan-created screenshots from Diablo 3. Jay looked at the actual screenshots and those doctored by the fans, and explained each set one by one from the perspective of the developers. The entire interview is fascinating, because Jay spends a good deal of time going through the artistic reasons why they chose the style they went with, and why the darker look expected actually would create an uglier game. My favorite conversation during the interview dealt with the controversial rainbows.
My question is, of course, why do we want the same game as we had ten years ago? Can't a world be frightning and we see the monsters coming at us rather than jumping out of the dark? Look at Resident Evil 5, that scares the crap out of me, and I can see every zombie fairly glowing in the sunlight. I honestly think its time that we start reinventing our genres, stretching our expectations and creating something new.
