It is true, games do change and evolve with time, however, it is important to know that old does not equal bad. The cult of new is ever present in every space, always making bold claims against old formulas that already work. Seems like the Diablo creator is displeased by this unnecessary modernization, claiming that the genre was cheapened. While this might sound like someone having nostalgia for the older days, or whatever other dismissive comment, it is actually quite true. We at Infinite Start will give our take in the matter.
Why fix what isn’t broken?
The current gaming landscape seems to have this weird obsession of speeding things up. All games, including Diablo, seem to have fallen into this hyper speedy category that permeates the whole medium. You can even see indie developers crafting said experiences, and honestly, that’s totally fine. Gaming should be varied and appeal to many crowds and fill different niches, but the issue is that games of today feel way more quick than the older days. One has to take into account the current societal landscape to piece things together and realize why this happens, society is unbearably quick.
In Japan, mobile games are at number 1 spot in the market. This is due to their societal model that does not give you a shred of time to enjoy things of quality. Experiences like Diablo have been sped up, this is apparent after the big reception flop after the “You don’t have phones?” incident at a Blizzcon. As we grow, we have less and less time to enjoy things that are meaningful. Therefore, everything has to turn into light speed content to fill a gap.
In the words of David Brevik himself, he considers that: “I don’t find that as kind of personal and realistic as like Diablo 2. The pacing on Diablo 2, I think is great. That’s one of the reasons it’s endured. I just don’t find killing screen-fulls of things instantly and mowing stuff down and walking around the level and killing everything, very enticing. I just don’t feel like that is a cool experience. I find it kind of silly.”
