“No one goes alone.” Sound advice for Diablo III’s world of Sanctuary, where death lurks everywhere. It even works in the context of the Diablo franchise itself. Through Battle.net, Blizzard’s proprietary networking service, the Diablo games were one of the first to recognize the potential for co-op. It’s a vision that’s informed much of Diablo III’s gameplay design. In this context, though, a misleadingly labeled “monster” panel at Blizzard’s 2007 World Wide Invitational in Paris has turned out to be more about Blizzard itself and the way it works internally to put compelling characters, enemies and gameplay up on a PC screen.

The Diablo III triumvirate on stage are Lead Designer Jay Wilson, World Designer Leonard Boyarsky, and art director Brian Morrisroe, and they’re discussing how at Blizzard a good idea can come from anywhere but it has to fit harmoniously among all the design disciplines. The Barbarian, for example, who is returning from Diablo II, began merely as just that: The idea that it would be great to see him again. Boyarsky takes over from that point, saying that his job with the Barbarian was to make sure that the character fit in well with the new world of Diablo III. It is, after all, 20 years after Diablo II, and Boyarsky needed to figure out what the guy’s been up to all that time. He then worked with the art department to create a more weathered, beaten and scarred appearance for the Barbarian that indicates that whatever he’s been up to, a lot of it hasn’t been pleasant.

Once the character has been outlined in broad strokes, though, it needs to be integrated into the gameplay. One of Blizzard’s character design mantras is “concentrated coolness.” For the Barbarian, this meant everything had to fit within the “unstoppable force” idea that’s represented by an eight-foot tall 300-pound killing machine. According to Wilson, creating skills and a gameplay style all flowed from that single concept. The first skill developed (Seismic Slam) was based on the idea that it would just be cool for the Barbarian to be able to hit the ground so hard it would break up earth, smash stuff around him, and send out a shockwave that would destroy foes. Subsequent skills were all informed by Seismic Slam to incorporate themes of movement and force.

The Witch Doctor, on the other hand, was a much different story. The team know they wanted to do some type of mage or magic wielder, but didn’t want to get caught up in cliched wizards or have him feel too much like a World of Warcraft character. The Witch Doctor idea came from the concept of bringing a frail old man into combat that the player isn’t sure right away whether they should like. The Witch Doctor has had a harsh life and been knocked around more than a few times. He strikes back using both psychological and magical techniques. The psychological was the province for Boyarsky and the artists who crafted a look rich with a classic “tribal” feel including a ferocious demon mask and feathers and bangles designed to make him appear larger. 

Leonard Boyarsky and Brian Morrisroe look surprised at the number of people sitting in the audience as they troop out on the main stage of the Paris Expo. The place is Blizzard’s 2008 Worldwide Invitational and legions of click-happy monster slayers crowd into the space, desperate for any new information regarding the just-announced Diablo III. The (respectively) Lead World Designer and Art Director for the game are here to discuss building story into the game and how the team came up with its art style, things most folks would say isn’t all that high on an action gamer’s list of priorities. Of course, Diablo isn’t most action game franchises and Blizzard isn’t most game companies.

“There’s so much unexplored potential for storytelling in the Diablo franchise,” Boyarsky says at the beginning of his discussion. He couches his words in a direct address to the action game fans who make up Diablo’s core group that this isn’t about slowing the action down in any way. Instead he’s “…looking to give some context to the player’s actions. We want to have more driving the player forward than just new loot and a new level.” It’s not that these things aren’t important, he adds, it’s just that experience can be so much richer when there’s a coherent world behind the action and a rationale for all the mayhem.

Boyarsky points out that even the lighter story of the first two games has generated a certain level of attachment from the fans. He uses the example of the fate of the angel Tyrael, which tends to be the thing that they’ve gotten the most questions about from fans. Apparently Diablo III will take place 20 years after the last game. In that game the angel Tyrael was helping humanity defend against an invasion by the forces of Hell. This was against the wishes of Heaven and he apparently knew that his destruction of the World Stone wasn’t going to make him many friends on his own side. Two decades later, no one’s seen or heard from Tyrael, the invasion that Deckard Cain was convinced was inevitable hasn’t happened and nobody knows why, and the events of the first two games are considered legends or myths. These are questions that Boyarsky took into consideration in the creation of the next game, though he’s mum about any details beyond that. 

Leonard Boyarsky has a very tough job. He’s lead world designer for Diablo III, the sequel to the quintessential action-RPG notorious for appealing to players who would never read quest text in an MMO and think story is that annoying few moments between fights and the next piece of “phat loot.” Boyarsky is the guy who integrates the vast background of Diablo’s world of Sanctuary with its diverse civilizations and rich and storied history into a game that prides itself on blazing action. Despite this and the punishing pace of working a show as chaotic as Blizzard’s World Wide Invitational in Paris, France, though, Boyarsky seems like a pretty chipper guy. The reason is that he sees the challenge of integrating a deep background and a rich story into Diablo III as less a problem than an opportunity to try out a new twist on storytelling in games.

“I wasn’t a hardcore Diablo fan before joining Blizzard,” Boyarsky says as we begin talking. “I played them, of course, and I really liked them, but I usually like a lot more story depth in my games.” According to Boyarsky, what drew him to the project was what he sees as the franchise’s untapped potential for storytelling. “A lot of people are afraid that we’re going to slow the gameplay down by enriching the story parts of the game. We’re not doing that at all.” The idea is to use some simple cinematic techniques such as dialogue rather than monologue to convey quest information and crafting richer backstories for the main characters that will be reflected in their artwork and the way they view the central action of the story.

One of the examples of this Boyarsky likes to use is the new Witch Doctor class. Unlike the previous games in which the player’s avatar was more archetype than actual character, the classes in Diablo III are designed with complete backstories including who they were before the story began, why they’re interested in the events of Diablo III, and who they are as people. The Witch Doctor is angry, someone who’s been broken by a life that’s dealt a few too many hard knocks and not enough joy. This is someone tired of being smacked in the head, so he uses his mystical powers to get into the heads of others (and if that doesn’t work, a swarm of locusts will get under their skin). Boyarsky also cites the new city of Caldeum that became the seat of government when Karast fell in Diablo II. How an open-trade city changes when its freewheeling style is co-opted by colorless government bureaucrats is something that informs everything from character development to artwork to the nature of quests.

“Working all of this stuff out is a day-to-day challenge,” Boyarsky says of the continual iterative process. As he describes it, it “…bounces back-and-forth between story and art and gameplay design.” While Boyarsky is responsible for the creative integrity of the storyline, the details of the world often change based on what comes out of other areas. An artist will create a really cool piece of artwork that has to be fit into the history of the world somewhere and gameplay mechanics must be invented for. A new monster is built around a really interesting combat encounter and Boyarsky’s the one who must rip pieces of the world away, juggle them around and put them back together in a way that makes sense within the rules of Diablo’s fictional universe.