d3 New Old-school, Original Blizzard North Diablo 3 Screenshots

[Starym 3,800]

 

We already know a lot about the original, Blizzard North-lead Diablo 3 project that was being worked on directly after D2 and eventually cancelled, and today we have a whole lot of new screenshots from around the end of that development cycle. As PureDiablo have noticed, Oscar Cuesta, formerly a 3D artist at Blizzard north and Blizzard has shared some of his work on the game, noting that the models were low polygon and they were only using base color maps at the time, but the shots look pretty cool nonetheless. As we know, the original D3 was set in the High Heavens which were being invaded by demons, the game was supposed to be more MMO-like and was cancelled/restarted in 2005. If you want to know more, you can read the wiki article on the entire thing here.

But let's head into the new screenshots themselves, starting with the Skyway Tower in the High Heavens, featuring either a female Barbarian or perhaps an Amazon and showing off how Heaven would get increasingly taken over by hellish growths, with one shot even showing off the UI at the time:

  

  

  

Then its on to more familiar locations, with the Tristram dungeon, which actually doesn't look that far off from what eventually became of Diablo 3:

  

  

 

We then have a couple of WinterStone shots, an Arreat-looking location, with a distinctly rogue/assassin-ish looking character included:

  

And finally we have the Spire, again showing off a lot of the Heaven architecture:

  

 

There's plenty more screenshots over at Oscar Cuesta's Artstation, so make sure to check those out as well.

Now let's take a look at some of the originally leaked images, courtesy of Kotaku from quite a while ago, back before the current Diablo 3 was released, which focus a lot more on the 3D nature of the game. The High Heavens shots look a lot more finished than the new ones we saw above, but there's no indication of the demonic corruption of Heaven, while the others look a bit rougher:

  

  

  

  

  

Some very interesting stuff there, and with what we now know the original shares a lot with both current D3 and D4, with it's supposed MMO-like features, a focus on the High Heavens and the darker tone.

Source.

We get a new look at the original Diablo 3 with a ton of screenshots.

[Arcling 898]

It's interesting to see how design of High Heavens has changed. I have Diablo 3 artbook, and I remember there was a mention of how original design was more Cathedral-like, but they have decided to move away from it.

[DeadOfKnight 0]

I like what we actually got, but this looks far better.

[priamXus 0]

It's way better than Diablo III. 

First the designs and elements on screen are the same to what Diablo I monastery was, which has a sense of coherence/continuity about it, second, and I'm impressed about it, the proportions are far more realistic, you feel that the character is inside a gigantic structure.

 

Gosh I wish some people from the original dev team was involved in Diablo IV

Edited July 12, 2020 by priamXus