Diablo’s Creator Explains Why He’s Working for a Chinese Rival

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Diablo’s Creator Explains Why He’s Working for a Chinese Rival

Zheping Huang

8 - 10 minutes

David Brevik, an American game developer, is best known for creating the iconic Diablo franchise for Activision Blizzard Inc. The 54-year-old is the mastermind behind the action role-playing game Diablo and its sequel Diablo II, which pioneered an entire genre of real-time combat combined with randomized dungeons and bountiful loot. In 2003, Brevik left Blizzard to start his own projects and has clashed with his former employer on where the dark-fantasy series should go next.

Brevik recently joined the dev team of Torchlight: Infinite as a consulting producer. Published by Shanghai-based XD Inc., the game is among a slew of Diablo wannabes on mobile and competes with Blizzard’s own Diablo Immortal. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Brevik explained why he’s helping a Chinese rival. Below are excerpts from the interview, lightly edited for clarity.

Q: Why did you join the team of Torchlight: Infinite? 

I’m a big Torchlight fan. When there is a new one coming, of course I’m excited about that. So I was playing the closed beta and they reached out and we started talking. And then we came to a relationship where I can come on as a consulting producer.

Q: What’s your role like?

One is doing media things like this, as well as playing the game and giving feedback and interacting with the community, providing more perspective from players that are similar to me in this part of the world. 

XD is very receptive to feedback, which isn’t always the case, and they really listen and they’re willing to make changes. We’ve had some meetings over Zoom. I’m in a WeChat group with them and we chat in there as well.

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David Brevik

Source: XD Inc.

Q: How many hours have you spent on this game and which hero do you favor?

It’s really the only action RPG that I have been playing lately. I probably have close to 50 hours at this point. I mainly play Moto, the dwarf guy with the robots. 

Q: Blizzard has its own Diablo game on mobile. How would you compare Immortal with Infinite?

I don’t really want to directly compare them, but I think that in general the Torchlight: Infinite experience is extremely smooth. It’s not really intense -- where I feel like you have to repeat the same content over and over. I like the mechanics of the end game a lot in Infinite, and I think that it’s a friendlier thing for gamers to play. It’s a lot easier and has a lot more variety. 

Q: There’s a lot of criticism around “pay-to-win” in those action RPG mobile games, and Infinite dropped some of the add-on features it charged players for during closed beta. Do you think Western, or PC, gamers are more reluctant to accept the freemium business model?

Everybody’s definition of pay-to-win is different, right? Some people feel like they should be given everything for free. And if a company charges for anything beyond just cosmetics, then it’s automatically pay-to-win for some people. I find that’s not even true. 

I’ve been deliberately trying to play Infinite as a free player to get that experience and to report back what that’s like. I feel like this game is extremely generous and allows everybody to get the items that they want and play the game that they want for free. And that’s about all you can ask for. 

Q: Even after Infinite made some tweaks to its in-app purchases, some players still criticized the gacha system for pets in the game. Where’s the line?

Every dev team has to decide where that line is. For Infinite, it’s that we’re not going to have it affect the core gameplay, that you can play everything, you can loot everything.

Also it’s not being directly competitive with everybody else. There isn’t player-versus-player in the game. It’s not like, “hey, I can advance further and faster and have better stats to go up against somebody else.”

Those two things really are kind of like lines in the sand.

Q: What score would you give Infinite, on a scale from 1 to 10?

My friends have a joke about me that my scale doesn’t go from 1 to 10. It goes from -8 to 2. Just because I’m such a sourpuss.

But I’ve really enjoyed this game. For me, I think this is in the kind of 8 or 9 range, which is way up there on my scale.

Q: What about Diablo II, your own game?

I don’t like Diablo II when I play it. It’s different when you make a game. I’m super critical of my own decisions and my own things, so whenever I play it, I see all of the mistakes, I see all the things that I want to fix. 

I haven’t worked on it in 20 years now, but it’s still hard for me to play it without thinking about all the things that I would do to change it, to make it different. All my games are bad because I feel like I can always improve them.

Q: There’s some sort of boom in Diablo-like mobile games lately, with the launches of Immortal, Infinite, and a South Korean game called Undecember.

I think there’s lots of fun choices out there. I would like to see this genre become more popular and grow to be even bigger than it is. Just seeing a resurgence is really fun.

Q: Your early Diablo co-creators have also been trying to outdo Diablo in the action RPG genre. Are you still in touch with them?

There’s always new ways to play these games, new ways to experience the action, and new ways to handle randomization -- all sorts of stuff that can come into play to create experiences that we haven’t had yet.

I created Blizzard North with two other people, Max and Eric Schaefer, two brothers that I knew. And they made the Torchlight franchise. Max and Eric live about six blocks away from me, so I see them all the time.

I’ve talked about Infinite with them. They’ve given it a try and they both have enjoyed playing.

Q: Lots of players say Infinite doesn’t feel like a new Torchlight game, instead more a mobile version of Path of Exile, which is another classic action RPG title. How do you feel about this?

I think that the Torchlight world is really interesting. I think it’s more friendly and open, but then the colors and the graphics are brighter and friendlier, not quite as dark as Path of Exile. I think it’s a great franchise, and then bringing something new to the franchise, something completely different, is really interesting.

Q: Looking at Infinite’s leaderboard, the top players are all playing the Berserker character with a similar build. Is there a balance issue?

No. You can change the balance of that for the next season. So that build really isn’t as powerful as it was during this season. And that’s okay. And then people will approach the game and play a different way. 

I think that oftentimes when you’re designing a game, the community is so clever that they come up with all these different combinations you would never think of and that create super powerful builds. And discovering those and playing through those is part of the fun. 

Q: Chinese game developers are now accelerating their global push after a year of regulatory crackdown hammered growth at their home market. Is there anything they should learn from Western devs during that process?

Chinese developers have become very good on mobile. And in general, they’ve grown into a place where I believe that they have just as good design sensibilities as anybody else in the world.

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Everybody is learning from each other all the time. I would like to see their take on things. Having a different culture and having a different way of thinking about games or experiencing content. I like those cultural differences. I celebrate those things rather than trying to get rid of them. So I think that it’s important for them to have their own voice and become really good at not only making games that have broad appeal, but have a Chinese spin on it.

Q: Do you think Infinite has a Chinese spin?

Yes. It’s the fact that a mobile version of an action RPG has been done really well like that. That in and of itself is not something that has been done with other developers.

Q: Will this consulting role lead to something bigger with XD?

Who knows? Never say never. I think that would be cool. 

Q: Will you consider taking on a similar role with Immortal or Diablo IV?

No. I won’t go back to Blizzard ever.