"Uh... now I understand what you meant by 'dark gothic' flavor, Lin."
When the Blizzard team received the first draft submitted by Brom, they were all taken aback.
These tech-savvy guys had never seen anything like this before.
Brom is a proper illustrator.
With just a casual gesture, that filthy, rotten, stench, bloody, and eerie smell would instantly rise up.
[ The Butcher ]
Its name was signed on one side by Brom in his distinctive artistic font.
The demon's long horns, the grotesque cleaver, and the body entirely pieced together from chunks of various demon flesh.
This is a Diablo version of Frankenstein, and one of only three special monsters in Diablo 1.
"Can this style really be a box office hit...?"
Mike fell into deep thought.
It completely deviates from mainstream style and the prevailing trends. "That's exactly the feeling we're going for. If we're always thinking about the mainstream, we'll never become the ones who define trends."
Just one glance was enough for Lin Lixin to know he had made the right bet.
As expected of the second-generation concept artist, the professionalism is truly impressive.
"By the way, the art and sound design can be carried out together with another project."
Seeing the questioning looks on their faces, Lin Lixin laughed heartily.
"CG! How can a Blizzard game be without CG?"
With the hardware codec chips from Micronova, they can attempt to cram far more audiovisual resources into optical discs with limited capacity than before.
" Lucas specifically cleared out a slot for the entire Lucasfilm just for us, so don't waste any time. Every minute Industrial Light & Magic occupies is burning money."
February, on the eve of President's Day.
Although Gamenova hasn't officially launched any promotional activities yet, it's not an impenetrable wall.
Lucasfilm's job transfers, various resources and outsourcing work, and voice actor recruitment have all been noticed by the paparazzi.
As in previous years, it seems that President's Day this year will be another key occasion.
However, the exact theme of this new work remains unknown.
Aside from a few staunch Gamenova supporters like Electronic Games, only a handful of insiders know the inside story.
And this includes... Stephen Wynn, the king of Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, MGM Mirage Hotel, penthouse suite.
"Is this thing really that complicated?"
Looking at the "arcade machine" in front of him, Wynn glanced at it with a hint of doubt.
Compared to a normal arcade machine, it has far too many buttons.
There's even a mouse conveniently located in the right-hand control area.
If the key layout were any more refined, he would have thought it was some kind of PC workstation. But according to Lin Lixin, this is their final product – Diablo.
"Mr. Lin, I don't doubt your professionalism, but if I may be frank, even someone like me who knows nothing about video games understands that the more complex the controls, the harder it is to learn and become familiar with them, and the less likely it is to become addictive, right?"
Wynn has never been a conservative, old-fashioned, and conservative company.
On the contrary, he has always been a reformer who pursues innovation.
The bustling scene in the arcade all day long was something he had always been interested in and wanted to learn from.
Wynn has seen the long lines in front of those Gamenova games.
Even if it costs one dollar or several dollars per ride, there are still plenty of people willing to queue up to play.
They completely treat arcades like playgrounds, utterly disregarding the high premiums associated with these machines.
This madness is so exaggerated that it can be described as a fanaticism that completely abandons reason.
And that's exactly what Wynn is pursuing.
Therefore, studying the Legend arcade game " Hotline Miami " from Gamenova became his daily work.
What you see is what you get, and the simple, clean controls are the essence of these arcade games. Even the most complex and difficult-to-learn fighting games don't have as many buttons as this machine.
At most, there are only six buttons: light, medium, heavy, punch, and kick.
This design concept completely deviates from Wynn's understanding of the "secret to the success of Hotline Miami ".
Complexity means a high burden, it means difficulty in getting started, and it also means filtering.
Is it complicated?
Lin Lixin laughed heartily.
"No, no, it's one of the closest video games to a slot machine in the world."
He gestured to the staff to power it on and continued explaining:
"Operational complexity and cognitive complexity are two different things."
Some arcade games have few buttons but a very high cognitive load, such as fighting games.
Players need to spend a lot of time memorizing commands, understanding the game's mechanics, and actively exploring the game's mechanics.
But Diablo is the complete opposite. Although it has a lot of buttons, it achieves almost zero cognitive burden.
What you see is what you get, literally.
Click on the monster to attack.
Clicking on the ground will make your character walk over there.
You can drink potions with a tap, cast skills with a tap, and equip gear with a tap...
Intuition and operation are highly matched, and when players are immersed in the game, they can actually hand over the operation entirely to their underlying reflexes.
Combined with the unique growth curve of the treasure-hunting game, the entire leveling process is part of the tutorial.
This makes Diablo a typical game that looks difficult but is easy to play.
It's exactly at one end of the scale with fighting games.
"Come on, let's give it a try?"
"Certainly."
Wynn didn't refuse; this was exactly what he had hoped for. "Buzz—"
[gamenova]
The logo of Nova Games appeared on the screen, identifying them as the publisher and co-developer.
Then came the main force:
Blizzard Entertainment
Despite being packaged as an "arcade" game, Lin Lixin still prepared top-tier CG production for it.
As the most important force under Gamenova in the future, Blizzard's brand must make a splash.
Although " Rock N' Roll Racing " was a hit for a time, it did not achieve a significant breakthrough in terms of influence.
Especially now that various manufacturers have learned to make motion-sensing arcade machines, its novelty has long since faded.
Blizzard lacks a blockbuster title that can truly make them a star.
Diablo would be the best opportunity.
He also needed to seize this opportunity to promote the " Blizzard selling CG" gimmick, leaving a strong impression of Blizzard in the minds of players.
The setting sun painted the sky red.
There are no lights here; the whole village is pitch black.
A broken sword is stuck in the mound of earth, as if telling the story of the tragedies that once took place here.
Due to technical limitations, Lin Lixin did not choose to produce a fully CG production.
Instead, a filming technique combining CG and live-action shooting was adopted, just like in " Biohazard ".
Lucasfilm's props department is the same team that worked on Star Wars; their level of expertise is top-notch even by Hollywood standards.
Not to mention Industrial Light & Magic, the super CG factory that Lin Lixin single-handedly cultivated.
"Squeak--"
The wind blew through the dilapidated wooden bed planks, and the rotten hinges creaked with a teeth-grinding sound.
The image resolution is not high, but you can vaguely see some kind of dark black traces everywhere.
It was impossible to tell if it was charred or... blood. A figure clad in armor, holding a sharp sword, stood dejectedly in front of the door.
There was only a dried-up and decaying corpse inside the room.
The old tree at the village entrance is now covered with hanged ghosts.
The protagonist, [ Aidan the Warrior ], played by Keanu Reeves, with whom he had just collaborated, silently walked through the village.
This place is no longer the village I remember.
His own father, or rather, King Leoric of Khanduras, had gone completely mad.
If the rumors are true, Leoric has now been completely corrupted by Diablo and resurrected in the tomb as the [ Skeleton King ].
The scene shifts to an ancient coffin covered in strange runes slowly opening inside the tomb.
Countless demons crawled out of hell in an endless stream.
More and more monsters surrounded Aidan, and the music gradually became more intense.
Then, both the music and the visuals abruptly stopped.
Everything fell into a deathly silence of darkness. "Roar--"
It is Diablo, the Lord of Terror.
The plot is very interesting, with a dark medieval fantasy style that has a strong gothic flavor.
But Wynn simply nodded silently, offering no further comment.
The opening animation was indeed very well-made.
But this only made him more suspicious.
This is not a quality that a good, addictive work should have.
There's too much information, and it's too complicated.
At least so far, Wynn has not seen the point of this work being "a slot machine".
The title of [diablo] is a large, burning image, likely created using some kind of pre-drawn or rendered CG, and the texture is excellent.
[Start Game]
[Waiting to join]
[Loading progress]
At least the selection options have a real arcade feel to them... right?
"It can still load progress? Are you sure this is an arcade game??"
Wynn turned his head to look at Lin Lixin, puzzled.
The earning power of arcade games ultimately depends on their ability to keep players inserting coins and the core duration of a game.
The Hotline Miami went to extremes in this regard, which is why its cash flow was the most extravagant among its contemporaries.
However, saving and loading progress is inherently incompatible with arcade games.
"Oh, this function requires our ' GameNova All-in-One Card '. Well, I just happened to bring it with me."
Lin Lixin pulled a gold-embossed black card from his pocket and casually handed it to the other person. "I know what you're thinking, and it's true. While Diablo is highly addictive, it's not a game you can finish in a minute. On the contrary, it's a game that can keep players engrossed for hundreds or even thousands of hours without getting tired."
"What about the fees..."
Wynn leaned down slightly and noticed that the machine did not have a coin acceptor.
"Mr. Wynn, instead of the traditional coin-operated model, I plan to try a completely new payment method with this machine."
From the very beginning of the Diablo project, he had already sent Sam to Nova Arcade with Gary to work on this.
Even Cerny and the others followed them later.
"I call it... a 'time-based subscription model,' where players pay to play the game for a certain amount of time, rather than buying in-game lives."