It’s safe to say that every franchise Blizzard has created to date has gone on to be extremely successful. For example the StarCraft franchise set the tone for what competitive RTS games should be like, and the Warcraft universe helped spawn games that grew into standalone titles such as DotA 2, and the World of Warcraft title also helped define what players should expect from MMORPGs.
Diablo is of course hugely successful on its own and has also played a role in shaping the action-adventure genre, but have you ever wondered what the original idea or pitch of Diablo was back in the day when the idea was first conceived? Obviously it is very different from the Diablo games we have come to know and love today, and the good news is that you can find out how different.
Diablo’s creator David Brevik promised attendees at GDC that he would upload the original pitch his company had for Diablo back when they were operating as Condor and before they were acquired by Blizzard. According to the pitch, the original Diablo was supposed to be a rogue-like game that only gave players one life and basically one chance to make it as far as they could, which we guess was still kept around and resulted in Diablo’s famous Hardcore mode.
However things change as the game developed which led to Diablo being more of an action adventure game that we have come to know today. The pitch also suggested that there would be multiple expansion packs that would introduce new items, monsters, traps, and levels, although if you have played the original Diablo, you know that there is only one expansion which wasn’t even by Blizzard called Hellfire and was developed by a division of Sierra.
In any case if you are interested in finding out what Diablo could have or should have been, you can check out the pitch in its entirety here.