Swords, spells and Academy Awards?

Diablo II vies to be the first role-playing game to be sanctified by Hollywood.

By Jamais Cascio

Nov 23, 1999 | For eight minutes, we are in another world. A dying man lies on the ground of his cell in a medieval insane asylum, as dust motes float in a Brownian dance across a shaft of sunlight. As he tells the story of meeting a stranger at a crossroads inn, we see the tale unfold before us. A hooded figure staggers into the inn, drawing the attention of the hardened warriors who sit and drink around the fire. The stranger is in pain, barely able to contain the demons that reside within him. We watch as the demons are temporarily unleashed, easily killing all but the narrator, who hides in the corner and watches. The inn is set ablaze, and the stranger walks out, the narrator following him on his journey. Roll credits.

Playing along with a handful of other animated shorts at a theater on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif., last week, "Diablo: The Calling" seemed only slightly out of place. It wasn't the sole computer-generated film in the collection, nor was it the only one with a truncated plot. But it was the only film participating in this screening -- all fulfilling the "public exhibition" requirement for Academy Award consideration -- that had been originally produced as the intro animation for a computer game. (The short is eligible for the Oscar because it was shown on a screen before it appeared as part of the game.)

Of course, "Diablo: The Calling" is an outtake from Diablo II -- the highly anticipated new game from Blizzard Studios. (Its launch was recently delayed from Christmas to early 2000.) Coming in the wake of Blizzard's original Diablo and StarCraft -- some of the most cinematic of computer games -- it's hardly surprising to see the gorgeous graphics of Diablo II vying for an Academy Award on the silver screen.

Blizzard has gone Hollywood. For a company that excels in what could be considered traditional hack-and-slash computer entertainment, Blizzard has a lot in common with a cutting-edge movie studio. Certainly, its games are produced like movies.

Over two years in the making, Diablo II has a multimillion-dollar budget and deals for spin-offs such as action figures and books. The game itself will fill at least four CD-ROMs, and will contain nearly 30 minutes of "cinematic elements" -- the high-resolution animations used to move the story forward. Though work on the game is still in progress, I got a sneak preview and found a game that, while still a bit rough around the edges, is already a visual wonder.

The environment of Diablo II is alive with motion, from the birds and small animals scampering through the underbrush to the whirling animations of spells such as the Shield of Hammers. Magic items and spells have unique visual representations. The character images -- the Barbarian, the Necromancer, the Amazon, the Sorceress and the Paladin -- have individual appearances and skills, each more compelling than the last. When I saw the Sorceress cast a "Rain of Meteors" spell, inundating the ground around her with a firestorm of flaming stones from above, I was amazed; when the Necromancer, in turn, cast a "Wall of Bones" that grew from the slain bodies of his enemies, I simply had to laugh. Even incomplete, Diablo II has some of the best graphics I've ever seen.

Next Page: Blizzard, a competitor to Miramax?

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