Diablo 3 producer responds to art style criticisms

After Blizzard‘s long-awaited Diablo 3 was announced last week in Paris, a large number of fans were disappointed because of significant changes in the art style of this installment in the series. Some labeled it unrealistic, cartoon-ish, and too colorful among other things. Finally, the game’s producer issued Blizzard’s official stand on the matter. See the full article up next.

If you’ve been even remotely tied to the PC gaming scene in the past decade or so, you’ll know who Blizzard is and that their games command so much passion in the platform. When Diablo 3 was announced last week, everyone was excited but not all of us were happy after the gameplay demos.

The reason for a lot of people is the paradigm shift in art styles. The Diablo series has always been known for its dark art style and gothic look  which matched the game’s storyline. A lot of people were surprised, and disappointed even, to see that Diablo 3‘s environments seem more light than ever before with cleaner textures and “cartoon-ish” character models.

Some have blamed the influence of the MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft for this shift in art styles that they labeled as “unrealistic”. A petition has been raised by thousands of series fans to have Blizzard rethink its strategies in presentation.

Diablo 3 producer Keith Lee, however, offered Blizzard’s side on the matter. In essence, the primary motivation for this change were the elements of contrast and diversity.

“One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for Diablo 3 is the fact that color is your friend,” he says. “We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast.”

“A great analogy is like in Lord of the Rings — not everything is dark,” Lee adds. “It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesnÂ’t allow you to have a lot of contrast.”

The producer added that Blizzard gives great consideration to what its fans have to say. However, he remained adamant in their team’s stand and concluded with the words “we donÂ’t want everything to look the same and thatÂ’s really what weÂ’re trying to aim for.”

This blogger can see where the fans are coming from, but arguing about realism in art styles? Come on, the realism stopped the moment we fought our first skeletons in the original Diablo. What do you think?

Via MTV Multiplayer