Diablo co-creator Erich Schaefer is making an action RPG with a studio of Blizzard North veterans

With  set to , 2023 might be a large 12 months for action RPGs. But there’s extra to stay up for past this 12 months. On Thursday, – an indie studio based by Phil Shenk and Peter Hu, two former Blizzard North builders – introduced the hiring of Diablo sequence co-creator Erich Schaefer. In an interview with , the studio mentioned Schaefer will function lead creator director on a new action RPG. Details on the mission are sparse, however what Moon Beast shared with Schaefer was reportedly sufficient to persuade him to return out of retirement.

“We have ideas for changing the genre with a different approach to progression and trying to solve some of the problems that are beholden to PvE games, especially games, like the Diablo franchise has dealt with,” Shenk instructed GamesBeat. All three males labored on Diablo II. Notably, Shenk is credited as the sport’s lead character artist, and was accountable for designing the looks of a few of the sport’s character lessons, together with the necromancer and murderer. Lord of Destruction, Diablo II’s glorious 2001 enlargement, options a tribute to Shenk within the kind of a monster you need to slay to finish one of Act V’s quests.

Schaefer instructed GamesBeat Moon Beast presently employs about 12 folks, making it smaller than many of the opposite studios working within the ARPG style. The excellent news is Schaefer has a lot of expertise main small groups. At Runic Games, he made Torchlight with a crew of about 25 folks. “I want to work on projects that are fun and genuinely try to do something different,” Schaefer mentioned. “It’s impressive what the Moon Beast team has built in such a short time. It fired up my imagination with possibilities, and that’s a huge part of why I wanted to come aboard.”