t has come to light that developer-and-publisher Blizzard Entertainment was prototyping several player-versus-player (PvP) modes during the early development phase of Diablo 3 before scrapping all of them.
Taking to Twitter last week on the event of Diablo 3 marking its 10th anniversary, Wyatt Cheng, the former senior game designer of Diablo 3 before switching to Diablo Immortal as its current game director, revealed some of those experimental PvP modes that could have made it into the game.
One of the early prototype PvP modes took clues from online battle arenas such as League of Legends and Dota. The mode featured a map that was divided into three lanes, each with its share of guarding towers and an army of rushing creeps.
There was also another PvP mode that pitted players against each other in an arena-based map with four pillars. Blizzard Entertainment even considered a sort of PvPvE mode for Diablo 3 where one player would take the role of a boss against four intruding players.
When asked why Blizzard Entertainment dropped PvP for Diablo 3 despite prototyping so many ideas, Cheng replied that the “wide skills, skill runes, and legendary items” made it incredibly difficult to integrate full-blown characters with any PvP mode while keeping an eye out for balanced and fun gameplay.
The most interesting reveal from Cheng, however, was that Diablo 3 nearly received a multiplayer hub town. Diablo Immortal has one and the ability to see other real players running by makes the game appear more alive and bigger.
Cheng stated that ultimately, the production cost of having a multiplayer hub town, could not be justified and was hence scrapped. The multiplayer hub town remains one of his favorite features that could not make it in Diablo 3.
but when a multiplayer hub town exists, it makes the world feel alive and real. During the very first Diablo Immortal technical alpha test last year many players commented how different Diablo Immortal feels just because Westmarch is a town you can see other players running by.
