Art Style: Why Diablo 3 looks and feels different

The art style helps determines more than the look of a game, it also impacts on the feel. Gamers need only to watch the art direction video for D3 [HERE] to hear them say plainly what direction they were heading in with D3... and the style IS a departure from the look and feel of the first two. The style was not a "painterly" one in D1 and 2.

Now hold on a sec. I didn't say it was a bad thing, just that it was different. I got to see D3 in action, and it is pretty stunning.  Too, a lot of the elements that were at the heart of D3's predecessors are still there. This, while more of a subtle change in comparison, is like the departure in style seen in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Many skeptics were pleased to find after playing it, that it was still a zelda game, as different as it looked and even garnered a fanbase for toon-link. Still though, it wasn't everyone's cup of tea because style matters. Style is important. Like how say the claymation in "the nightmare before christmas" helped create that atmosphere, that feel that helped make the movie so popular. In a similar but different way, it's how some find the 2D monsters of final fantasy 4 (2 in America/Canada) lose there awesome Amano inspired design in translation to 3D. 

When things are said using an art style or direction, it has a certain look and feel. But when the same  things are said using another art style, the look and feel changes. With that change is an opportunity to explore new dimensions the style provides. New things can be discovered and expanded on.

Taste can be subjective, people will cling to what they know and love, but where there's a visual change in direction, the look and feel of a game changes. Whether we stop to think about it or not.

- Josh