Diablo 4 Reportedly Began Life as Dark Souls-Like Action RPG

Blizzard's take on the action-RPG series.

News by Matt Kim, News Editor

21 November 2018

A new report shed some light on the development of Diablo 4 at Blizzard following a disastrous unveiling of Diablo Immortal, a mobile game announced at the end of the BlizzCon 2018 keynote.

For some the announcement of Diablo Immortal at BlizzCon 2018 left a bad taste, with some actively questioning whether there even is a Diablo 4 in development despite reports suggesting there is. Now a new Kotaku report shed some light on the rocky road the currently in-development Diablo project underwent including a cancelled project called Hades that apparently was Blizzard's take on Dark Souls.

Developed following the cancellation of an unnamed second expansion for Diablo 3, Project Hades was supposed to be a new mainline Diablo project headed up by Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls director Josh Mosqueira. It would also be a dramatic new direction for the series.

According to the report Project Hades "would be a gothic, challenging dungeon crawler," and specifically called a "Diablo take on Dark Souls." What's more Project Hades traded-in the traditional isometric camera angle for an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective. It was so different that apparently internal development wasn't even sure it'd end up being called Diablo 4.

Unfortunately this project was also cancelled, just like the planned second expansion for Diablo 3. Mosqueira left Blizzard but it's unclear if he left after the project was cancelled, or the project was cancelled because he left.

At BlizzCon this year the company ended its annual keynote by announce Diablo Immortal, a mobile game set in the Diablo universe co-developed by Blizzard and Chinese tech giant NetEase. Blizzard says it was developed from the ground-up for mobile after some accused Diablo Immortal of being a reskin. However, it appears that mostly has to do with similarities in mobile UX design.

A new Diablo project is still in the works at Blizzard headed up by what's left of the Diablo 3 crew at Team 3 and this is meant to be a mainline entry into series. However, it's still very early according to reports with even the decision on camera perspective not set in stone. Check out the full Kotaku report for more details.

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Matt Kim

News Editor

Matt Kim is a former freelance writer who's covered video games and digital media. He likes video games as spectacle and is easily distracted by bright lights or clever bits of dialogue. He also once wrote about personal finance, but that's neither here nor there.