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

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

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A former Blizzard developer discussed the second unreleased expansion of Diablo 2.

This expansion was designed and never produced, said David Brevik, who was the co-founder and president of the extinct Blizzard North studio. Twitter on the weekend.

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“I had a multi-page design doc examining new classes, new areas, new mechanisms and concepts in history,” revealed Brevik. “This is as far as I can get.”

Diablo 2, which is currently scheduled for a remastering, was released in June 2000 and was critically and commercially acclaimed. A hugely successful expansion, Lord of Destruction, launched a year later. The introduction to Lord of Destruction is below:

Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction certainly performed well enough to warrant 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 12 months before leaving Blizzard North. “This is one of the reasons why it was never done,” he said. “It was before patch 1.10 (in terms of schedule). We were also working on our version of Diablo 3 at the time, in addition to another unannounced project.”

Blizzard North was working on a Diablo 3 that was discarded and restarted by Blizzard Entertainment. Brevik, along with other key Blizzard North employees, left to found Flagship Studios. It was an exodus that involved the departure of about 30 people and resulted in the second expansion of Diablo 2 falling by the wayside. Blizzard North was closed in 2005.

In 2016, Brevik tweeted to say that one of the new classes that would be added to Diablo 2 with this expansion was a cleric class, who would not necessarily be a healer.

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An excerpt from Stay Awhile and Listen: Book 2 by David Craddock, published on Shacknews in 2012, also contains some information about the expansion. According to Craddock, the second expansion would have expanded Diablo 2’s multiplayer capabilities. Background artist David Glenn built guildhalls for groups of players who wanted to start their own clan. Players could meet in these guildhalls to carry out missions.

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Expansion of Diablo 2, Lord of Destruction.

“A legal feature of the guildhall was Stieg Stone, a stone named after designer Stieg Hedlund where members of the guild could deposit money,” wrote Craddock.

“In certain increments, they would unlock new guildhall rooms and various accessories for their guild block. After a few brainstorming sessions, the team decided not to proceed with the expansion. Diablo 2 was finished; it was time to build Diablo 3. “

It looks like Brevik has more information about this second unannounced 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 may want to use it sometime,” he tweeted.

As for Diablo 3 that Blizzard North worked on before it closed, Brevik said that “it would have been very different from any Diablo”.

“I think it was very interesting”, he tweeted. “We used a lot of the game’s structural concepts for Marvel Heroes. I was an ARPG + MMO. MMO in terms of a lot of people playing at the same time, not as WoW. It was discarded because most of BlizNo came out.”

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

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Blizzard is set up to host a “Diablo: What’s next?” panel at BlizzCon this week. Keep your eyes open.

UPDATE: This article incorrectly stated that the second unreleased expansion of Diablo 2 was planned as an ARPG + MMO. We edited the title and copy to reflect the fact that Brevik’s comment regarding Diablo 3. not released from Blizzard North. We apologize for the error and apologize for the confusion.

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