The team of former Diablo 2 leads at Moon Beast Productions are in the unenviable position of developing a competitor to the iconic Blizzard ARPG they helped create with Darkhaven, but one of the indie project's leads has already accepted there will probably never be another Diablo 2.
"That's kind of been my whole career in a way, you know, always chasing Diablo 2. I gave up for a while, you know, with the space games. I said, 'I'm just going to make small games that reach a small audience,'" said former lead designer at Blizzard Erich Schaefer, in an interview with Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson. Schaefer acted in various capacities on Diablo and Diablo 2, including as project lead, design lead, and art director, so he definitely knows the ins and outs of the genre, but he still regards Diablo as a lightning bolt unlikely to be bottled again.
"Here with Darkhaven, I figured this is a great shot again for a big success, but it's impossible really to chase Diablo because, again, 25 years [since its launch]," Schaefer says. "I think [Diablo 2 programmer Peter Hu] said 25 decades, which I think maybe it might actually last that long. To have a game that lasts, that you can still play, and still people make content and stream for 25 years, that's unlikely going to happen again in my career. So yeah, sort of always under the shadow, but at the same time, it's a cool accomplishment, and people all know it, so I'm happy about it."
Schaefer, Hu, and former Diablo 2 lead character artist Phil Shenk seem to share a similar sense of pride in their work with Blizzard – combined with trepidation in going up against such an iconic ARPG. Hu previously said "there's tons of conflicted feelings" about making a competitor to a genre titan like Diablo, while Shenk said, "we feel the pressure, but I don't hate them for it."
It's worth noting that Darkhaven isn't a Diablo-like. It's built around the same bones, for the most part, but it also features what Moonbeast is calling a "massively interconnected, MMO-scale network of realms," as well as procedurally generated environments and a "fully destructible open world" where you can build and level terrain. GR+ senior writer Austin Wood didn't come away wholly impressed by its Steam Next Fest demo, but it piqued his interest enough that he wants to see more.
