Chapter 202 - Diablo in VR? (1/2)

Everyone started working on their tasks after learning about Diablo’s new update and the design concept for Don’t starve.

Chen Mo was quite busy as he had to focus on Diablo as he had to go through resources for new areas, new classes and the new story.

Most of the work for Diablo was managed by Zheng Hongxi and Qian Kun, whereas Su Jinyu led another group of employees to work on Don’t Starve.

Diablo 3 didn’t do well when it was just released and lost a lot of its players in a short amount of time. Especially with huge shoes left behind by Diablo 2 to fill, many players of Diablo 2 didn’t recognise Diablo 3 as a sequel.

This situation was only amended on the release of Reaper of Souls.

Before this update, Diablo 3 had a 41% rating on Metacritic, rising up to 72% after the update.

After the update, the reviews of Diablo 3 increased dramatically, it could even be said that they were completely different games before and after the update.

And the way they saved the game were points Chen Mo pointed out previously.

Including a ranked ladder, removing limits for Paragon Levels, removal of Auction House, adding new maps, new playstyles, better differentiation between various difficulties, adding a competitive season…

These changes allowed players to find fun in Diablo 3, dragging it from the edge of death.

Although Chen Mo made many changes to Diablo 3 allowing it to be artistically closer to Diablo 3, this game still possessed a risk of a shortened lifespan.

The key factor was the change in the players’ tastes. Diablo 2 had a classic design that paved the way for many other games, but the fact that there wasn’t much competition then and and the nostalgia factor should also be taken into consideration.

Even if a remastered version of Diablo 2 that was completely faithful to the original was released, it probably wouldn’t be successful as the market was now completely different.

After the team for Diablo 2 left Blizzard, they made Torchlight, and games like Grim Dawn were also seen on steam.

However, no matter if it was a game made by the original team Torchlight, or a very ‘Diablo’ Grim Dawn, they never came close to Diablo 3’s success.

The reasons were complicated, but the changing times certainly played a big role. You can’t do the same thing over and over again as times changed.

Reaper of Souls was the most successful third person RPG that stemmed for the harsh lesson Blizzard learnt. Therefore, Chen Mo wanted to take some elements from Reaper of Souls to extend Diablo’s lifespan.

As for Don’t Starve.

This was similar to Lifeline, Chen Mo hoped that Su Jinyu and the others will get some enjoyment in the process of making don’t starve and learn a few lessons from it.

Which was why Chen Mo didn’t provide too many ideas, instead challenging them by having them think about the settings that should be in the game.

In Chen Mo’s previous life, Don’t Starve was an indie game, but definitely wasn’t niche.

The multiplayer version of Don’t Starve sold nearly five million copies on steam. And when it was included on Tencent Gaming Platform, it broke one hundred thousand sales in the first two weeks, selling five million copies in the first month.

There was no question for Don’t Starve Charm as a high quality single player game. Chen Mo also wanted to use this opportunity to test the acceptance of the players of this world towards open world and sandbox games, as well as providing his employees something to do.

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