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Blizzard Entertainment was originally developing Diablo IV as a Dark Souls-like experience complete with over-the-shoulder perspective.
That's according to an extensive report on Kotaku, which reveals the first incarnation of the highly anticipated dungeon crawler was codenamed Hades. Blizzard reportedly started working on this version of Diablo IV after the release of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, cancelling a planned second expansion for that game in the process.
The Souls-like version of Diablo IV had a number of Diablo III staff working on it from 2014-2016, including director Josh Mosqueira. After it was scrapped, Blizzard then put teams working on two new projects: Another version of Diablo IV, and the Rise of Necromancer DLC for Diablo III.
According to Kotaku's sources, the current version of Diablo IV is codenamed Fenris and aesthetically shares more in common with the first two games in the series.
'There’s a lot of people who felt like Diablo 3 got away from what made Diablo Diablo in terms of art style and spell effects,' one Blizzard source told the site. 'They want to make [Fenris] gross, make it dark, [get rid of] anything that was considered cartoony in Diablo 3… Make what people were afraid of in Diablo 2, but modern.'
Blizzard obviously isn't flavour of the month right now for many people, following its announcement of the mobile-only Diablo Immortal at BlizzCon 2018. It also denied reports that it was planning on showasing Diablo IV at the event.
