Blizzard considered “Diablo Junior” for GBC/GBA
Blizzard’s Diablo series could have come to a Nintendo handheld.
According to author David Craddock, who is about to release a book about Blizzard North, reveals that a small team made a proposal for “Diablo Junior” following the release of Diablo II.
Junior would have been a prequel created for the Game Boy Color and/or Game Boy Advance as a single-player title. There were plans to release three cartridges, much like Pokemon. Each would feature a unique hero and items that could be traded across the different versions.
Craddock notes that the project was ultimately shelved “because of the steep production costs associated with developing handheld games.”
“Following Diablo 2’s release, Blizzard North split into two teams … kind of. One team immediately started in on D2’s expansion set, Lord of Destruction. The other team went into spitball mode, kicking around ideas for a new IP. But several other developers ventured into groups of two or three and put together proposals for smaller projects. One of those was given the working title Diablo Junior, a game tentatively planned for the Game Boy Color and/or the Game Boy Advance, depending on market share and other business-y factors. Diablo Junior was intended as a single-player-only prequel to the original game. Taking a page from Pokémon’s book, the team wanted to release three cartridges, each packing a different hero in the warrior-rogue-sorcerer vein as well as items that players would have to trade for in order to collect. Heroes started in a unique town before heading into dungeons and wilderness zones. Diablo Junior was ultimately put out to pasture (absent of cow levels, I’m sure) because of the steep production costs associated with developing handheld games.”
