David Brevik is regarded as the father of Diablo. Now the developer spoke about a decision that changed the action RPG Diablo forever.
David Brevik is a game developer and former head of Blizzard North. In the 90s and early 2000s, Brevik worked on Diablo 1 and 2 and has since been considered the father of Diablo. In 2003, Brevik left the development studio and said in 2021 that Blizzard was dead to him.
In an interview on the YouTube channel “Ars Technica”, he spoke about the development of Diablo and revealed how one decision changed the game forever and made it what we know it as today (via YouTube)
What decision is it? Brevik explains in the interview that Diablo was originally developed as a “turn-based RPG” where movements or attacks would have been individual turns. Similar to the X-COM game series or the new Wartales on Steam.
At one point in the development, a proposal came up to make Diablo a “real-time game” and to drop the turn-based gameplay.
But Brevik did not like the idea. I was very afraid of losing what I considered the essence of the game
, he explains.
Since the question of a real-time Diablo kept coming up, Brevik presented the suggestion to his developer team of about 15 people at that time – and they responded, according to Brevik, with: I think this could be quite cool
.
A vote decided Diablo’s fate
What happened next? Brevik initiated a vote with the entire development team in the kitchen of Blizzard North, allowing them to decide on the switch to real-time combat. It was reported to have a clear outcome. Brevik lost.
Although Brevik himself was still not convinced by the idea, he says, the decision was made, and Diablo was to include real-time combat. Nevertheless, he feared that the switch would take too long and that they would have to return to turn-based combat later.
Let’s give it a try. I think this is stupid. I think it’s a waste of a month to do this. We’ve made this game too cheap. We’ll go back. We’ll try to get more money at the same time. Yes, we’ll take longer to develop this game because it’ll be this real-time thing. So we need not only an additional milestone payment but we won’t be able to show anything or talk about it for a month because it takes that long to do.
However, things turned out quite differently.
Months of work or just an afternoon?
Brevik changes Diablo in an afternoon: Despite his doubts, Brevik decided on a Friday to start the transition of Diablo to a real-time system himself and sent his employees home.
Subsequently, Brevik began working and was finished within a few hours – not as he expected, after a month or more: I started working Friday afternoon, and by Friday evening it was done
.
Then he struck a skeleton with a club for the first time and thought, Oh my God, this is fantastic
. At that moment, Brevik realized that Diablo was so much better this way.
When all the employees were back in the studio the following Monday, the work was done, it worked, and it was clear to everyone that this was the right way to go. After that, they did not look back.
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