14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Blizzard carefully tested the Inferno difficulty level for their upcoming hack and slash title Diablo III but then decided to base their decision on how hard the game will be on the player base expectations rather than on the information it had gathered.
Jay Wilson, who is the lead designer working on Diablo III, has told IGN that, “Internally, we had this super hardcore test group – we’ve got a lot of hardcore players at Blizzard – that tested Inferno, and we got it to the point where they thought it was challenging enough.
“Then we doubled it. Because we knew, no matter how good we are, our players are gonna be better. We focussed on making that as difficult as we could make it.”
To the developer, the difficulty as it stands now allows the truly hardcore players to solo all Inferno content as long as they are patient and use their knowledge of the Diablo mechanics and adapt it to the new game. It also creates interesting occasions for gamers to cooperate and coordinate abilities with different classes.
He added, “The ability to combine different classes together is one of the things that makes Inferno really interesting.”
Diablo III allows gamers to use five different character classes and only the Barbarian is using mechanics that will be instantly familiar to anyone that has played one of the previous games in the Blizzard-made series.
Developers have said that they aim to make each class unique when it comes to the approach to both mob battles and fights with bosses.
Diablo III will be launched on May 15 on both Mac and PC, in physical form and via digital distribution through Battle.net.
Blizzard has also hired a number of people to work on a console version of the game, but it has not officially announced it as being in development.