Diablo IV further confirmed via character leak in upcoming art book excerpt.

[Maledict]

See, the thing is it makes absolutely no sense to sexualise a Succubus like this.

Either she's a demon, or a really sexy man / woman. Who the hell is getting turned on by a woman who also has a 12 foot wingspan, gorns bigger than your legs and claws and spikes everywhere?

Also, just to add - thanks to the utterly stupid Richard E Knaack lore, there's absolutely no reason Lilith should even appear vaguely human. Hell, there's no reason for her to be a succubus at all. She was created aons before humanity first appeared, when there were just demons and angels. Who the hell was she seducing? Her father was half a floating corpse!

 

[Wamb0wneD]

On the contrary, a lot of folks have been shitting on Blizzard's games since World of Warcraft, where there was a highly perceptible shift in their output; something that really crystallized with the release of Diablo 3 (which is still a major downgrade from Diablo 2 in terms of art direction and atmosphere) and Starcraft 2 (which completely murdered all of the intrigue and pathos developed throughout the original Starcraft and Brood War).
Art and design are highly subjective. I personally found pretty much everything about Diablo 3 to be a downgrade coming from Diablo 2, and Starcraft 2 is very often hit-or-miss in its design work (with some designs being upgrades and others being straight downgrades, in part due to their excessive focus on exaggeration and sexual dimorphism).

Gameplay-wise I wouldn't argue on that point as they haven't really fucked up like they have with their artwork and storytelling. What's weird to me is that they used to have a sort of edge to their output, but that edge has been significantly dulled over time, to the point where Overwatch is downright Pixar-like in their cleanliness. Not a positive thing, IMO.

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I wouldn't have a problem with Overwatch looking the way it does if the rest of the games didn't look cartoony, too. In and of itself Overwatch looks fantastic imo.

Thing is, Diablo 1/2 always was the outlier in terms of artstyle. It sucks that they tried to bring it into the same lane as their other games with 3 artstyle wise, and they shouldn't try that again with 4. Let's see what happens.

 

[Fularu]

I wouldn't have a problem with Overwatch looking the way it does if the rest of the games didn't look cartoony, too. In and of itself Overwatch looks fantastic imo.

Thing is, Diablo 1/2 always was the outlier in terms of artstyle. It sucks that they tried to bring it into the same lane as their other games with 3 artstyle wise, and they shouldn't try that again with 4. Let's see what happens.

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The complaints levied at Diablo 3 (and the current artstyle) were levied at Diablo 2 for beeing too cartoony and ruining the aesthetics of the original game and not respecting the original lore/vision/design/gameplay loop.

So it's comically cyclical

 

[GringoSuave89]

Either she's a demon, or a really sexy man / woman. Who the hell is getting turned on by a woman who also has a 12 foot wingspan, gorns bigger than your legs and claws and spikes everywhere?

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🙋‍♂️

In all seriousness, Blizzard has only ever had "sexy female" in their tool box for years.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Man remember when this was one of the first pictures we got from Diablo 3 when the page went up?

I was so hype back then...To be fair Act1 was the only half decent one in the entirety of vanilla D3 so...yay I guess.

The complaints levied at Diablo 3 (and the current artstyle) were levied at Diablo 2 for beeing too cartoony and ruining the aesthetics of the original game and not respecting the original lore/vision/design/gameplay loop.

So it's comically cyclical

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Maybe that's the case, I wasn't that active back then online. It's just... looking at D2 and then D3 is way further away from each other than D1 and 2 ever were.

 

[Fularu]

🙋‍♂️

In all seriousness, Blizzard has only ever had "sexy female" in their tool box for years.

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Overwatch and the WoW Kultirans would beg to differ

 

[Sanox]

horns seem a bit too big same with the weird looking massive wings other than that I like the design of course hard to fully judge without seeing it in the game

 

[GringoSuave89]

Overwatch and the WoW Kultirans would beg to differ

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You're honestly gonna use Overwatch as an example? 👀

 

[Laiza]

The complaints levied at Diablo 3 (and the current artstyle) were levied at Diablo 2 for beeing too cartoony and ruining the aesthetics of the original game and not respecting the original lore/vision/design/gameplay loop.

So it's comically cyclical

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That's an outright lie. Diablo 2's art style was the absolute peak of the series. The equipment visuals alone are borderline photorealistic. Never read or heard anyone complaining about its art style of all things.

You might have had people complaining that it wasn't as claustrophobic or dark due to all the time spent in open fields rather than shadowy dank dungeons full of corpses, but that's an entirely different complaint.

 

[Fularu]

You're honestly gonna use Overwatch as an example? 👀

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Yes. It has women of different body types and origin. It's not just a display of oversexualized, over attractive women

That's an outright lie. Diablo 2's art style was the absolute peak of the series. The equipment visuals alone are borderline photorealistic. Never read or heard anyone complaining about its art style of all things.

You might have had people complaining that it wasn't as claustrophobic or dark due to all the time spent in open fields rather than shadowy dank dungeons full of corpses, but that's an entirely different complaint.

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No it isn't and Diablo 2 is far more colorfull and far less grittier/horror than the original

Look we get it, you despise the current artstyle but that's no reason to project your preferences and rewrite what the reaction was at the time.

 

[skeezx]

after the backlash i sincerely doubt it'll have the same/similar style as D3. that said it'll still look very "modern Blizzard" i'd imagine

 

[Laiza]

No it isn't and Diablo 2 is far more colorfull and far less grittier/horror than the original

Look we get it, you despise the current artstyle but that's no reason to project your preferences and rewrite what the reaction was at the time.

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Yeah, good luck convincing me when you've got no proof. Somehow I suspect that you'd be taking things out of context or blowing things out of proportion anyway - it's very easy to find outlier opinions for a game with copies sold in the millions.

 

[Wulfric]

Sam Didier is still with Blizzard but he just did the manual artwork for Diablo 2. Pretty sure anyone else who had anything to do with Diablo 2 are all gone. Morhaime was the last to go. Don't see anyone on the credits list who are still with Blizzard.

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Question for ya, so Samwise isn't a founder obviously, but he's gotta be pretty high up there at this point yeah?

 

[Deleted member 1190]

Yeah, good luck convincing me when you've got no proof. Somehow I suspect that you'd be taking things out of context or blowing things out of proportion anyway - it's very easy to find outlier opinions for a game with copies sold in the millions.

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"You cant change my mind because you can't prove it, and even if you could prove it I would choose to not believe you anyway!!!!"

lmao

Question for ya, so Samwise isn't a founder obviously, but he's gotta be pretty high up there at this point yeah?

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He's a senior art director. He does art, or at least provides art, for pretty much every game Blizzard does. His art style is kind of the overall Blizzard art style.

 

[Toxi]

Goddamn is that design generic.

I guess that's to be expected from Blizzard.

 

[eosos]

What a tired design. Guess it must be real hahah

 

[Tacitus]

He's a senior art director. He does art, or at least provides art, for pretty much every game Blizzard does. His art style is kind of the overall Blizzard art style.

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Which is a bit of a shame imo. I get the appeal of having a "Blizzard style", but his style should not be it. It's overbearing enough for Warcraft.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

I certainly recall several /r/diablo threads about people complaining about D2 during its release.

Here's one such: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/urico/the_irony_diablo_2_sucks_overpriced_garbage/

I also recall threads with complaints about too colorful graphics or the like. But my google-fu and all isn't great.

---

Back towards this specific design. Even for a succubus creature, it's lame. Could've gone further with the seductiveness angle and went with more nudity instead of...scantly-clad. Maybe add some real disgusting/disturbing elements to that. Or just anything unique.

But you look at that and it's...nothing of note really.

It doesn't even mean terribly much and, who knows, maybe if Lilith is part of the Cinematic she's looking great in there with high detail level. But if this is indicative of the remaining design choices then I'm certainly disappointed. I'm not going to get D4 due to the CPP garbage but otherwise, D4 would be one of my most hyped games and I was certainly expecting Blizz to go way out of their way to nip any "not dark enough" art style complaints right in the butt. And I say that despite being somewhat fine with D3's visual design.

Though, it's the storytelling that really mustn't be anywhere close to Blizzard's "recent" output. To think that LotV somehow even outdid Diablo 3 in its cringe-inducing storytelling front...

 

[Firemind]

Looking at the generic ass character portrait, Blizzard hasn't learned a damned thing from D3.

 

[Deleted member 1190]

Looking at the generic ass character portrait, Blizzard hasn't learned a damned thing from D3.

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The portrait is from D3. Read the text on the page.

 

[Firemind]

That doesn't really inspire much confidence either if they're letting artists do whatever they want with D4.

 

[8byte]

This thread is really embarrassing for a lot of members here. So many hot takes that just sound pretentious.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

I have it on good authority the main villain will be named Eerf Hceeps.

 

[LowParry]

That doesn't really inspire much confidence either if they're letting artists do whatever they want with D4.

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Let's hope they go more dark and gritty this time. Maybe explore new destinations this go around?

 

[Deleted member 8852]

It's almost guaranteed that they'll carry through the D3 aesthetic at this point, blizzard hasn't done dark and gritty for nearly 2 decades now.

 

[M1dn1ght_R0yal3]

Yup, that's a woman designed by Blizzard's character artists if I've ever seen one.

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So?

 

[Deleted member 1190]

It's almost guaranteed that they'll carry through the D3 aesthetic at this point, blizzard hasn't done dark and gritty for nearly 2 decades now.

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The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo

On November 2, 2018, Blizzard closed its annual BlizzCon keynote by announcing, to scattered applause, a Diablo game for phones. It was a baffling marketing decision that immediately set off controversy, as fans of Blizzard’s iconic action-role-playing game franchise loudly accused the company...

kotaku.com

One key part of that vision is the art direction. During development of a game, many studios use what they call "pillars"—mantras that help define the game's goals so that everyone on the team is on the same page. For Fenris, one of those pillars is simple: Embrace the darkness.

"There's a lot of people who felt like Diablo III got away from what made Diablo Diablo in terms of art style and spell effects," said a current Blizzard employee, adding that Fenris is aiming to look more like the beloved Diablo II. Said another: "They want to make this gross, make it dark, [get rid of] anything that was considered cartoony in Diablo III… Make what people were afraid of in Diablo II, but modern."

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[JahIthBer]

Let's hope they go more dark and gritty this time. Maybe explore new destinations this go around?

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No, you will get Tristram again & enjoy it.

 

[Reddaye]

I wrote a post linking to the Kotaku article that Skab posted, but they beat me to it. :-P

Curses!

Also, I'm expecting people who want something radically different in terms of setting for Diablo 4 are going to be disappointed. I feel like Blizzard are going to do everything they can to prove to fans they can make a real Diablo experience. Things like Tristram reek of Diablo.

 

[Laiza]

"You cant change my mind because you can't prove it, and even if you could prove it I would choose to not believe you anyway!!!!"

lmao

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The thing is that it's stupid to raise this kind of false equivalence when Diablo 3 and Diablo 2 are two VERY different products with two VERY different aesthetics.

It's not cyclical. There are different people making different arguments and trying to paint it as the same thing is incredibly reductive and also kind of stupid. Not to mention there's an obvious bias when you're pointing at whatever random examples you ran into as indicative as the whole when it's just random people posting on the Internet.

Trying to paint yourself as being in the right on an issue that happened 19 years ago is incredibly obnoxious and trying to say that my reaction to Diablo 3 is anything at all like the general reaction to Diablo 2 is remarkably bizarre considering how publicly visible the reaction to Diablo 3's reveal was (to the extent that they added secret meme pony levels with rainbows mocking people complaining about it).

I certainly recall several /r/diablo threads about people complaining about D2 during its release.

Here's one such: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/urico/the_irony_diablo_2_sucks_overpriced_garbage/

I also recall threads with complaints about too colorful graphics or the like. But my google-fu and all isn't great.

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Reddit didn't exist in the year 2000.

Look, if you have to look for it, it's not significant enough to warrant comment. Diablo 3 was very publicly derided for its visuals and overall atmosphere - you don't even have to look very far to find examples of this. If you have to search high and low for similar examples on Diablo 2 you really, really need to be able to admit that it just wasn't as big an issue for that entry.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

Reddit didn't exist in the year 2000.

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No shit. The thread was about people complaining about D2 during ITS release [on other forums]. That's implied precisely because Reddit obviously wasn't a thing at that point. And I even did link one such example...

 

[Windforce]

Bring back Amazon and Druid

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Now we're talking. :) Please, I want this too.

 

[Deleted member 29660]

Yeah that looks like Lilith alright, it's pretty much par the course for how her design was in another book. Plus the whole succubus connection. Yeah people are going to complain, but anything sexual always gets the usual crowd out. Nothing new there either but it is very Diabloish.

 

[CoolOff]

Man remember when this was one of the first pictures we got from Diablo 3 when the page went up?

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Man, I remember how hyped I was for D3 from a pure lore and atmosphere perspective. I even bought the lore book that they gave out ahead of release. Then we got the putrid garbage that was that game and I threw it in the trash.

 

[LowParry]

No, you will get Tristram again & enjoy it.

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You're probably right.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

See, the thing is it makes absolutely no sense to sexualise a Succubus like this.

Either she's a demon, or a really sexy man / woman. Who the hell is getting turned on by a woman who also has a 12 foot wingspan, gorns bigger than your legs and claws and spikes everywhere?

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Oh boy you have much to learn lol

 

[Laiza]

No shit. The thread was about people complaining about D2 during ITS release [on other forums]. That's implied precisely because Reddit obviously wasn't a thing at that point. And I even did link one such example...

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I'm just saying because you first said

I certainly recall several /r/diablo threads about people complaining about D2 during its release.

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but /r/diablo didn't exist during its release, so I'm just rather confused about what you were trying to refer to.

 

[Cort]

Man remember when this was one of the first pictures we got from Diablo 3 when the page went up?

I was so hype back then...To be fair Act1 was the only half decent one in the entirety of vanilla D3 so...yay I guess.

Maybe that's the case, I wasn't that active back then online. It's just... looking at D2 and then D3 is way further away from each other than D1 and 2 ever were.

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[Wamb0wneD]

Man, I remember how hyped I was for D3 from a pure lore and atmosphere perspective. I even bought the lore book that they gave out ahead of release. Then we got the putrid garbage that was that game and I threw it in the trash.

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For real. No matter how good D4 turns out to be, the way they killed off Deckard Cain was so mind boggingly dumb I sat there in disbelief, mouth wide open. Act1 was at least alright, but god damn was the rest a garbage fire. When even Torchlight's desert is more atmospheric than yours you know you fucked up lol. Let's not even talk about the vanilla gameplay experience. Fucking joke.

I really, really hope they can bounce back with this one.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

I'm just saying because you first said
but /r/diablo didn't exist during its release, so I'm just rather confused about what you were trying to refer to.

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Yes, and there are /r/diablo threads ABOUT people complaining about D2 during its release.

That's what the threads were discussing and/or linking to.

Do I seriously have to explain the meaning of the word about? If I tell you that there are resetera threads about e.g. reactions to the current-gen console launches, you'd understand just fine, even though resetera didn't exist at the time?

Can you just lay your semantics nonsense to rest now? It seems like perfectly legible English and then there's the fact that I linked a thread, so that even if you're particularly obtuse you would understand.

 

[Deleted member 57578]

Man remember when this was one of the first pictures we got from Diablo 3 when the page went up?

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Oh man I totally forgot about that. And they released 3 fantastic ambient music tracks each about 2 minutes (New Tristram, Caldeum, and Cathedral (which was especially amazing)).

 

[Fularu]

Yeah, good luck convincing me when you've got no proof. Somehow I suspect that you'd be taking things out of context or blowing things out of proportion anyway - it's very easy to find outlier opinions for a game with copies sold in the millions.

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You're hilarious. I've been playing Blizzard games since The Lost Vikings and the reception to D2 was livid among fans of the first one calling Blizzard North sell-outs for giving in to Blizzard's artistic choices and gameplay design changes.

It took version 1.09 to have people complain less and then LoD to have them shut up for good.

Unfortunately 2000 internet isn't 2013 internet where everything is archived and people keep complaining addnauseum about how it should be this or that. Anyway as you so eloquently say, you've decided that your headcanon is what happened anyway so there's no point discussing this point furthee.

 

[Bonestorm]

So excited. Nothing compares to D3 for me. Tried so many other ARPGs and none nail the animations and physics of D3. It just feels fantastic to play. Hopefully they can get the story right this time also.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Oh man I totally forgot about that. And they released 3 fantastic ambient music tracks each about 2 minutes (New Tristram, Caldeum, and Cathedral (which was especially amazing)).

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Yeah the music was indeed fantastic. Granted they borrwed some of it from the earlier entries, but they would've been stupid not to lol.

No shit. The thread was about people complaining about D2 during ITS release [on other forums]. That's implied precisely because Reddit obviously wasn't a thing at that point. And I even did link one such example...

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Thing is, they complained for entirely different reasons. The one you linked is about someone complaining about the resolution because his Gefore 2 (man those were the times) wasn't put to use by the game, or complaining about the poor battle.net connection (some things never change lol). There was abrely any complaint about the artstyle, and most people in the thread disagreed with them anyway.

The few people who had criticisms for Diablo2 are in no shape or form comparable with the shitshow that was the D3 launch that spawned memes galore because nobody could play, a shitton of people complaining about the artstyle to a point where the devs added a level to make fun of them, the auction house controversy (that shit was the main culprit for the abysmal vanilla experience), or the completely botched balancing for the inferno difficulty with absolutely insane ability combinations for mobs and people smashing pots in act 4, while trying to not run into any enemies, for legendary farming.

If you really want to act like these situations were even remotely in the same ballpark then..good luck lol.

 

[cyldman]

Im gonna lose my shit .

 

[fluffydelusions]

I wonder if this game will launch on all platforms at the same time

 

[Deleted member 1190]

Yeah the music was indeed fantastic. Granted they borrwed some of it from the earlier entries, but they would've been stupid not to lol.

Thing is, they complained for entirely different reasons. The one you linked is about someone complaining about the resolution because his Gefore 2 (man those were the times) wasn't put to use by the game, or complaining about the poor battle.net connection (some things never change lol). There was abrely any complaint about the artstyle, and most people in the thread disagreed with them anyway.

The few people who had criticisms for Diablo2 are in no shape or form comparable with the shitshow that was the D3 launch that spawned memes galore because nobody could play, a shitton of people complaining about the artstyle to a point where the devs added a level to make fun of them, the auction house controversy (that shit was the main culprit for the abysmal vanilla experience), or the completely botched balancing for the inferno difficulty with absolutely insane ability combinations for mobs and people smashing pots in act 4, while trying to not run into any enemies, for legendary farming.

If you really want to act like these situations were even remotely in the same ballpark then..good luck lol.

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The discussion was about the visuals alone, no one said anything about the gameplay or launch issues. Zero reason to bring them into it.

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

If you really want to act like these situations were even remotely in the same ballpark then..good luck lol.

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Well, I don't.

I just wanted to point out that the situation existed and I've seen it discussed on e.g. /r/diablo a few times over the years. Precisely because the D3 visual outrage permeated everything and some people found a bit fun irony in linking to a few similar D2 rants. But finding so specific /r/diablo threads, or even the actual old forums and such where the discussions were made ain't easy, at least with my google skills.

No doubt the discourse wasn't even remotely as dire for D2, though. Granted, fewer people were as active on the internet in 2000, too. Kinda hard to compare directly.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

The discussion was about the visuals alone, no one said anything about the gameplay or launch issues. Zero reason to bring them into it.

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Well if the discussion was about the visuals alone the poster I was responding to shouldn't have brought up a thread from back then where someone was more busy talking about 640x480 resolution, bad battle.net connections, needed RAM and perceived lack of new content instead of you know...the visuals.

 

[Deleted member 1190]

Well if the discussion was about the visuals alone the poster I was responding to shouldn't have brought up a thread from back then where someone was more busy talking about 640x480 resolution, bad battle.net connections, needed RAM and perceived lack of new content instead of you know...the visuals.

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Yes, youre right. They shouldn't have, as it was a bad example of the topic being discussed.

But by all means if you want to make this be about everything else, then you do you.