Avatar of SetchDreskar Posted on: Saturday, October 27th, 2012 Author: Posted in: News Comments: 14

Diablo 3, The Space Opera

I want you to imagine something for me, think back to your days roaming through the decaying world of Diablo, and now imagine that in space!

Well according to David Craddock author of “Stay Awhile and Listen” , a book on Blizzard Entertainment, the team that had originally made Diablo 2 split into two seperate teams to make new games for the company. While the first team continued work on a new Diablo title the second team began working on a new project but couldn’t seem to make any head way, starting and scrapping half a dozen ideas. Then finally, the team had a breakthrough idea, what if they combined the addictive and amazing gameplay of Diablo 2 with an operatic science fiction world? That idea then passed into prototyping where the game, code named Starblo, could be tested in playable builds.

“The project earned the nickname Starblo for its mix of a space setting and the action-RPG formula that made Diablo so successful,” Craddock said. “Like Diablo 2, Starblo would take place over several acts, but rather than journey across a single world, players would board their customizable spaceship and travel to new planets, killing and looting the space creatures they found there. By the time Dave Brevik and the Schaefers left Blizzard North in summer 2003, the Starblo team had produced a few playable builds of the game, but still hadn’t come up with a proper name.”

Personally I would be very interested to see this come to fruition, bringing a new type of science fiction RPG for me to sink my teeth into. Sadly since the game never saw release, one could easily assume that this project was never greenlit past the prototypes, and that this is just another interesting game that will never see the light of day. Perhaps there is a ray of hope though, as Craddock doesn’t seem to have any evidence the project was scrapped, and could very well still be floating around the Blizzard design studios. Who knows we may very well see this intriguing concept play out on our gaming machines in the future.

Sources:
Shack News
Escapist Magazine
PC Gamer