Diablo III: Blizzard North version

Diablo III began development at Blizzard North in 2000, and continued until the studio closed in 2005. An almost entirely new development team took over at Blizzard Irvine in 2005, and the game they created is what we know today and what the rest of this wiki covers.

Few elements of the original Blizzard North version of Diablo III were retained, and no one working at Blizzard has given any details about why the original game was scrapped or which elements were retained in the new version. Even the ex-Blizzard North employees have had little to say on the matter, whether out of professional courtesy, loyalty to old friends at Blizzard, or fear of Blizzard's lawyers.

There was never any announcement that Diablo III was under production until the game's debut at the WWI Paris event in June 2008. After that time, the new Diablo III team admitted that the game was under production back at Blizzard North in the early 00s, but they've never given any details about what that version of the game was like.

Diablo III's Blizzard North History

This is an abbreviated account that will be fleshed out by additional updates. See the Diablo 3 History article for related information.

Early Diablo III revealed.

Diablo III began development at Blizzard North in 2000[1], shortly after the completion and release of Diablo II. At that point only a few developers were working on the 3D engine and some early art assets (such as monsters and environments), and development on Diablo III didn't really kick into gear until 2001, after the release of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, when the bulk of the Diablo II team were available to start working on the sequel.

Development continued steadily until 2003, when financial issues and insecurity about Blizzard's ownership began to disturb the developers. Those issues[2] ultimately led to the departure of the "big four" in mid-2003.[3] Shortly after their departure, numerous other long time employees of Blizzard North followed them out the door.

With such an ongoing talent drain, Blizzard North had to shelve development on their other, never-revealed, non-Diablo title, and concentrate all remaining employees on the (still unannounced) Diablo III. Rick Seis was announced as the Project Lead of the still-secret title, a position he held until mid-2005, when Blizzard North was officially closed down.

Most of the remaining Blizzard North employees left for other studios, when Blizzard North closed. Chiefly Flagship Studios, Castaway Entertainment, and Hyboreal Games, all founded by past Blizzard North/Diablo II developers. A few employees stayed with Blizzard and relocated to Irvine, where they joined the newly-formed Diablo III team and worked on the game, which was restarted nearly from scratch in 2006.

Diablo III Art Assets

Despite the fact that Blizzard North closed down in 2005, the official secrecy about what the developers had been working on lasted until after the 2008 reveal of the new version of Diablo III. Even then, all of the artwork and other game assets were from the new version, dating from 2006 or later.

• All images from the Blizzard North version of Diablo III can be seen in this image gallery.

=Alan Ackerman's Monsters

The first visuals of anything from the Blizzard North version of Diablo III appeared in late 2010, but were not widely-reported until January 2011[4]. They were several images of two monsters from the game, posted on the blog of artist/animator Alan Ackerman. Alan had worked at Blizzard North for years, before leaving to join Castaway Entertainment in 2003, so his work was clearly from quite early in the project.

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  Flayed Hound.

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  Flayed Hound.

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  Bone Warrior.

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  Bone Warrior.

Early Screenshots

Early Diablo III revealed.

The next images to see the light of day surfaced in February 2011[5], via a post on Kotaku.

There were seventeen screenshots released, most showing gleaming silver and ivory levels of Heaven, where Diablo III had long been rumored[6] to take place. Other screens showed a dungeon area called The Keep. The images were released without any additional information, and there was no hint of when they'd been taken or who had given then to Kotaku.

All seventeen can be seen in the Blizzard North image gallery. A few samples are seen on this page or included in the gallery below.

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A public vote run on leading fansite Diii.net shortly after the shots were released found that a slight majority of fans preferred the look of the game in the early screenshots to the current version.

Which D3 art design do you prefer?

• 1) I prefer the earlier art style. -- 1555 votes, 45.63%
• 2) I prefer the current art style. -- 1398 votes, 41.02%
• 3) I like them both. -- 375 votes, 11%
• 5) No opinion/can't decide. -- 61 votes, 1.79%
• 4) I dislike them both. -- 19 votes, 0.56%

Total Votes: 3408

Interestingly, those results are from the second vote run on Diii.net, since the results of the first vote had to be tossed out after it was hacked and thousands of duplicate votes were submitted (in favor of the earlier screenshots). The passion of fans was clearly shown by that being the first vote on that site, in the 3 years since Diablo 3's announcement, to ever be cheated in significant numbers.