Diablo creator says fast levelling up in modern ARPGs ‘cheapens the entire experience’
David Brevik thinks the focus on speedy progression in today’s ARPGs “makes a worse experience”
The creator of Diablo says he feels that modern action RPGs level up the player too quickly.
In an interview with Videogamer, David Brevik – who was senior designer and lead programmer on Diablo, and project and design lead on Diablo 2 – criticised modern takes on the genre for rewarding players too quickly.
One of the main criticisms levelled at Diablo 3 (which Brevik didn’t work on) is that players can reach level 70 within a matter of 3-4 hours depending on how they play the game, much faster than in previous games in the series.
According to Brevik, the pace of Diablo 2 is “great” because it takes the player longer to level up, arguing that slower progression makes it more satisfying when you reach that point, and that too many of today’s ARPGs are more focused on levelling up the player faster.
“When you’re shortening that journey and making it kind of ridiculous, you’ve cheapened the entire experience, in my opinion,” Brevik said, stating that the fun in an ARPG “actually isn’t getting to the end, it’s the journey”.
Brevik also suggested that while the Diablo games he worked on had moments where there were a lot of enemies to defeat, modern ARPGs focus too much on throwing hordes of enemies at the player and having them defeat them en masse.
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“I don’t find that as kind of personal and realistic as like Diablo 2,” Brevik explained. “The pacing on Diablo 2, I think, is great. That’s one of the reasons it’s endured.
“I just don’t find killing screen-fulls of things instantly and mowing stuff down and walking around the level and killing everything, very enticing. I just don’t feel like that is a cool experience. I find it kind of silly.”
Last month it was claimed that a Switch 2 port of Diablo 4 is in the works.
