AtomicGamer: So why do you think we haven’t seen many triple-A action RPGs this generation?
Kevin Martens: Well, I think there’s a couple of things going on. Firstly, the action and RPG genres are bleeding together a lot more than they used to. You have games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that’s a good example of a great RPG that also has good action systems. Furthermore, a lot of action games are adding RPG elements as well, likeBioShock. One of my favorite RPG games of the previous generation was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That had really compelling RPG stuff, but was marketed and sold and seen as an action game. So that one element of it is that the two genres are sharing a lot more things together. RPGs are inherently compelling in their level-up systems and character customization ability, etc., so that stuff is coming into action play. Now, if we’re going to talk specifically about action-RPG, the genre mold of Diablo, I think it’s really a game that’s randomized like that, it has a bunch of different classes. Those games are just really hard to make. Diablo II was a king of that genre, and it’s still for sale everywhere over 10 years later.
AG: Yes, even after all these years people keep coming back to it. What do you think the appeal of the genre is?
KM: I think one of the best things is the low barrier of entry for games like these. By having that action front end, in the case of Diablo, you just start clicking on things. It’s not that complex. You have a couple of simple powers and a potion and so on. It’s not that hard to understand how to play them. Many more people are willing to try them when they have sort of an action feel to them. I think that some people are scared to try certain RPGs because they come across as really complex or confusing.
I think that’s why action tends to be an easier genre than RPG, so by merging the action gameplay and then taking all the elements of RPG, like map customization, randomness, etc., we have found this thing is still enduring. That’s why something like Diablo II, with all the polish put on it, when you add all that up, that’s why it’s played 11 years later.
AG: Do you feel this decade-old formula is enough to appease today’s gamers? What does the Diablo franchise need to do to appeal to this generation, aside from offering what the series has already done so well?
KM: In that sense, we’re really going to make a lot of improvements to a lot of different systems. The main thing is that, as you said, there’s not a lot of games in this type of genre, this type of action-RPG genre. If we deliver a really compelling re-playable game like this and we do it with a newer engine, but we keep the system specs low, and we couple it with something like our new Battle.net experience, which makes it widely accessible and very easy to play with your friends, you know, that strong co-op multiplayer element, it’s hard to see how people aren’t going to love this game.
AG: Can you talk about some of the more defining features Diablo III is bringing to the series?
KM: The first thing of all the new stuff that we can talk about is that of the five classes we have, four are brand new to the universe. They have a lot of new play styles involved with that. Furthermore, when you have all these classes, there’s a lot of diversity, not just which powers you choose or which type of wizard you’re going to be, but whether you’re going to go with disintegration, fire, etc. But even within those, we have this system called “runes”, where you can take these powers and do just crazy stuff with them. You can take a witchdoctor power called “Plague of Toads“, and turn you into a giant toad. It literally swallows the enemy and spits out the gold inside of them and so on. So the customization is extraordinarily huge. It’s astonishingly re-playable. We have a lot more areas of the world that no one has seen before, so we’re changing the universe. The quest system itself is way better; the quest and the stories are much deeper and probably more re-playable than Diablo II as well. So that’s some of the new things that we’ve done. Additionally, I think that the co-op multiplayer is better than ever; Battle.net is going to become the new standard for multiplayer systems online.
AG: A lot of gamers will be introduced to Diablo for the first time with Diablo III. Is Blizzard looking to expand its audience and introduce Diablo to new players, or are you satisfied just to please the hardcore guys who have been with you since the beginning?
KM: I think there’s elements of both. We try to keep the barrier to entry really low from every angle. We try to keep the system specs as low as possible. You don’t have to buy a new computer to play the game. We want all people to be able to play it. So, first, it’s successful that lots of people can play it. After that, we make the barrier to entry when you start playing it very low. All Blizzard games have a very good system of rounding up the complexity. When you first start playing, everything is very simple. The playability and all the options…they can gain from the systems as much as they want
AG: What would you say really separates Diablo III from other upcoming games in the genre?
KM: I think, primarily, the randomness. So the fact that we have random dungeons, random monsters, random loops, pretty much random everything. Every time you go around a corner in a dungeon, you don’t know if you’re going to see a brand new quest that you’ve never seen before. You might see the same monster, but with totally new powers. You might see a totally different monster. That aspect of it is one of the things that Diablo is most well-known for, and I think that we do that better than anyone. I think that’s the feather in our cap, that and Battle.net. A lot of RPGs, unfortunately, don’t even have co-op at all; as a huge co-op player myself, it’s always disappointing when they don’t, but it’s really hard to do. We built this game from the ground up with co-op in mind. That is just as important as any other element of the game because that’s one that has to be seamless. You can be playing along in your single-player game, and at any time, your friends can join and they can drop out. All of that should be really easy for both them and you to be able to handle. A game should very elegantly handle the addition of new players and level of difficulty.
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