2014 might not seem that long ago, but the gaming industry was vastly different back then. Overwatch hadn’t introduced us to loot boxes. Fortnite hadn’t made us sell our souls to battle passes. In many ways, it was an era of peace, even if microtransactions were still abound.
Over at Blizzard HQ, plans were being made for a new Diablo game. After Reaper of Souls gave Diablo III its one and only expansion, it was back to the drawing board for what Diablo IV would be. In an article over at Wired, Jason Schreier reveals just how different Diablo IV was in those early stages.
As some head honchos at Blizzard had declared Diablo III a failure for the series, it seemed the developers wanted to try something really different with Diablo IV (codenamed Hades at the time). There were ideas of a new camera POV, focusing on an over-the-shoulder view, similar to something like Gears of War or the Batman: Arkham games. Combat would have been heavily inspired by the latter games too, with punchy brawls being a main focus. There was permadeath, too, which would mean players would lose characters, but gain resources and power-ups for their next attempt.
However, the problems with Hades were apparent right from the beginning. If the game was going to have co-op, it may need to ditch the Batman: Arkham style combat as it relies on a single player being surrounded by goons. Also, in 2016, Hades lost its director, forcing new prototypes of the game to be hacked out over the course of just a few days.
Would you have played this version of Diablo IV?