Ex-Blizzard dev discusses Diablo 2’s unreleased second expansion • Eurogamer.net

Ex-Blizzard dev discusses Diablo 2’s unreleased second expansion • Eurogamer.net

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A former Blizzard developer has discussed Diablo 2’s unreleased second expansion.

This extension was just designed and never manufactured, said David Brevik, who was the co-founder and president of the disbanded studio Blizzard North. Twitter over the weekend.

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“I had a design block with more pages to discuss new classes, new areas, new mechanics and story concepts,” Brevik revealed. “That’s how far it has come.”

Diablo 2, currently set for a remaster, was launched in June 2000 and received critical and commercial praise. A very successful expansion, Lord of Destruction, began a year later. The introduction to Lord of Destruction is below:

Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction certainly fared well enough to justify a second expansion, but it never came out. Now, 20 years later, Brevik is talking about what happened.

Brevik said he designed this second expansion about six to twelve months before leaving Blizzard North. “That’s one of the reasons it’s never been made,” he said. “It was before the patch of 1.10 (in terms of timeline). At the time, we were also working on our version of Diablo 3, plus another unannounced project.”

Blizzard North was working on a Diablo 3 that was eventually scrapped and restarted by Blizzard Entertainment. Brevik, along with other key Blizzard North employees, left to start Flagship Studios. It was an outing in which about 30 people departed, leading to Diablo 2’s second expansion falling by the wayside. Blizzard North closed in 2005.

Back in 2016, Brevik tweeted to say one of the new classes that would be added to Diablo 2 with this expansion was a spiritual class that would not necessarily have been a healer.

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An excerpt from Stay Awhile and Listen: Book 2 by author David Craddock, published to Shacknews in 2012, also contains information on the expansion. According to Craddock, the second expansion would have expanded on Diablo 2’s multiplayer features. Background artist David Glenn built guild centers for groups of players who wanted to start their own tribe. Players could meet in these guild centers to conduct quests.

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Diablo 2 expansion Lord of Destruction.

“One of the most beautiful guild features was the Stieg Stone, a stone named after the designer Stieg Hedlund where guild members could deposit money,” Craddock wrote.

“In certain increments, they would open new guild house rooms and various accessories for their guild. After some brainstorming, the team decided not to follow the expansion. Diablo 2 went its course; it was time to build Diablo 3. . “

It sounds like Brevik has more on this unannounced second expansion for Diablo 2, but is reluctant to talk about it “since Blizzard owns the rights and I’m not sure what I can say”.

“They might want to use it one day,” he said. tweeted.

As for what the Diablo 3 Blizzard North was working on before it was shut down, Brevik said it ‘would have been very different from any Diablo’.

“I think it was really interesting,” he said. tweeted. “We used a lot of the game structure concepts for Marvel Heroes. I was an ARPG + MMO. MMO in terms of a lot of people playing at the same time, not like WoW. It was deleted because most of BlizNo is gone.”

Meanwhile, Brevik was asked if Diablo 4 sounds anything like this Diablo 2 expansion. Here is his answer:

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Blizzard offers a “Diablo: What’s Next?” panel at BlizzCon this week. Keep your eyes open.

UPDATE: This article incorrectly claimed that Diablo 2’s unreleased second expansion was planned as an ARPG + MMO. We edited the headline and copy to reflect the fact that Brevik’s comment regarding Blizzard North’s Diablo 3. has not yet been released. We regret the mistake and apologize for the confusion.

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