Diablo 3 evolved over the years into a new and highly successful Blizzard title, but it was not universally loved at the time of its new release. One of the biggest criticisms was the art direction, which many fans felt was too bright and colorful for the series compared to the heavy darkness of the previous two games.

However, it was not initially envisioned that way. According to "new" screens recently collected by PureDiablo, in the early stages of development, Diablo 3 actually looked more like Diablo 2 than the final product. The image was originally posted a few months ago by Oscar Cuesta, a former artist at Blizzard North, Diablo's original studio that closed in 2005, but went unnoticed until it was posted on a Diablo fan site.

According to Cuesta, the model was "fairly low-polygon and only used a base color map," and while it is obviously incomplete, it is nevertheless clear that the initial vision for Diablo 3 was a more direct successor to the previous work: grim and Gothic (literally), but relatively understated and bland. Strictly speaking, I don't know if it would have been better, but it definitely would have met expectations.

Despite Diablo 3 still going strong, Blizzard suggested last year when Diablo 4 was announced that it would be a hard-swinging return to the gritty darkness we remember from the first two games. Whether it is actually as dark as we remember is debatable (a topic that Tyler and James delved into last year), but last year's intro cinematic definitely pushed discomfort to the forefront.

There is currently no release date for Diablo 4, but director Luis Barriga warned when it was announced at BlizzCon 2019, "It's not coming out soon. Not even 'soon by Blizzard'."