Jay Wilson: Mac Game Diablo III Will Be Progressively Harder

Diablo III game for Mac OS X (ESRB: RP) takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II. In an MTV interview, Diablo III designer - Jay Wilson - described how this game will appeal to Diablo’s hardcore fans and broad audience.

In the 3rd instalment of this game, warriors that survived the onslaught of the armies of the Burning Hells have gone mad from their ordeals, and it is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary.

In Diablo II, players had infinite health because of the ‘potion.’ They were also faster than monsters. But in Diablo III, that’s about to change. ”Players will have to pick up health orbs after they’ve killed enemies, which will restore their health upon contact,” - Wilson told MTV.

“Up until fairly recently, ‘Diablo II’ was Blizzard’s best-selling game… ‘World of Warcraft‘ has finally surpassed it, but it took it several years to do that. And part of the reason is how approachable the game is,” - Wilson added. He explained that keeping the game approachable is key to Diablo’s success. His team had to make tough chocices, “we pulled out the potion system… When we wanted to add a hot bar we knew we had to pull the potion stuff out. Every time we add something, we have to pull something out to keep the game very simple and straightforward to play.”

But fans should not worry. “When the player has similar downsides, it means we can make a lot more interesting monsters. We don’t have to kill you to challenge you. We can make a monster that affects your mobility, we can make a monster that has different kinds of attacks that are dangerous to you and that you actually have to avoid. And so it makes the combat a lot more interesting.”

Although Diablo III game will be progressively harder, Wilson said that new changes will not make game too difficult. “I think that hardcore players, long-term, will find a game that has lot more depth for them but we distinctly made the choice that in the first stage of difficulty, the game’s really easy. So it’s easy to get through, it’s fun to play and you can kind of spam with one skill. But as you get further and further into the game, you start having to go, ‘Okay now I’ve really got to use this ground stomp thing to stun some monsters and get some distance from them to recover.’ That’s something that we focus on more later in the game.”

And while “Diablo III” ends the trilogy, it won’t be the end of Diablo games. “We’re not saying this is the end of the ‘Diablo’ universe, but we are trying to bring this storyline to a close,” - Wilson told MTV. “It’s not just ‘Diablo III’ — we’ve got plans beyond.”