PSA: The Diablo Franchise Almost Went Full Pokemon Once

Diablo has remained a PC hack-and-slash dungeon crawler for its whole life, but Diablo almost became a handheld Pokemon clone at one point.

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It’s a pretty exciting time to be a Diablo fan. Diablo 2: Resurrected is deep in development by several teams at Activision Blizzard, and is looking to be a faithful remake of the classic dungeon crawler. Meanwhile, updates continue to release for the upcoming Diablo 4, which also seems to be a promising return to form. Even Diablo Immortal could prove interesting for fans on mobile. Diablo 3 was a divisive game all throughout its life, but it seems like the mythical series is back on track. Even with competitors arising such as the popular Path of Exile, Diablo has still kept the smoldering embers of its old popularity alive, and is poised for a true revival in the next couple of years.

However, in another time and another place, it was poised to try something very different. In the days after Diablo 2, Blizzard North programmer Jonathan Morin was toying with an idea for a very different kind of Diablo game: In his mind, a port of the original Diablo 1 to a handheld, with some adjustments to make it more appealing to the younger Pokemon crowd, sounded interesting . To that end, a team of three-to-four people began work on Diablo Junior, a project that only lasted for about half a year. Nothing ever came of it, but it’s still an interesting and obscure piece of Diablo history that provides fans with plenty of food for thought.

Diablo In A Pokemon World

Originally, Diablo Junior was conceived as either a port or prequel of a Diablo game to handheld gaming systems. Morin had laid eyes on a Game Boy development kit, and after considering the popularity of the original Pokemon games in America around that time, he was pretty sure it could work. Even though the Game Boy Color and Advance were both out by the time development started, it was decided that the game should be able to run on the most basic hardware possible. Theoretically, if the project had moved forward, Diablo Junior would have probably released on the Game Boy Advance to score as many sales as possible.

The idea was to transfer the Pokemon format over to Diablo, though the team was still working out what that actually meant when development halted. Players were still expected to play as Diablo characters and fight monsters, but it wouldn’t necessarily be the same. A lot of ideas were tossed around regarding the game’s genre and gameplay, and the developers weren’t sure if they wanted a turn-based RPG like Pokemon itself or a portable hack-and-slash title. A Game Boy demo leaked onto the internet in the late ‘00s that was isometric like the regular Diablo, but Morin later revealed that this was different from the completely top-down demo his team had made.

Whether the game was to come out on the Game Boy Color or Advance, a special cartridge system similar to the old Pokemon games was planned. Different versions of the game would be released, with each version having a different character class and support for cross-system item trading. Morin has commented that one version would have had players control a knight, while in the other they would be a mage. By the sound of that, it doesn’t seem like Diablo Junior would have adapted Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, or Dragon Warrior Monsters’ monster collection mechanics.

Blizzard Wasn’t Interested In Making Pokemon-Diablo

Unfortunately, Diablo Junior was not meant to be. During the era it was being prototyped, there was a split within Blizzard North between those who never wanted to work on Diablo again, and those who wanted to continue working within the IP. Looking back on the project, Morin believes he had a profitable idea, but it just wasn’t the right fit for the studio during that period. There is a high probability that such a radical take on Diablo would have hit a whole new audience, spawning a lasting sub-series in the process. If Diablo Junior had continued, fans very well might have an SMT-like monster and demon-catching game today.

After the resignation of several key employees, including Diablo creator and former president of Blizzard North David Brevik, Blizzard South had a look at Blizzard North’s projects. Blizzard South hadn’t been informed of the development of Diablo Junior, and ultimately scrapped it due to production costs. In a 2019 interview, Matthew Householder suggested that the title had been cancelled due to its lack of an internet connection, after the previous Diablo games had succeeded because of Battle.net.

Jonathan Morin, meanwhile, thought that the game didn’t match Blizzard South’s focus on “hyper-profitability” by producing a handful of games to gain long-term profits. The production costs of cartridges made that inconceivable, and Blizzard would need to establish a relationship with Nintendo to release the game. Ultimately, a Game Boy game just wouldn’t have fit Blizzard’s PC focus.

The hypothetical Diablo/Pokemon fusion never came to pass, and it’s rather unfortunate that it was scrapped. The idea of a mobile Diablo game may indeed have been years ahead of its time, considering the announcement and apparently imminent release of Diablo Immortal. A portable Diablo game is pretty easy to conceptualize, especially given the series’ penchant for simple, isometric graphics and a lot of menu preparation. Time will tell if Diablo Immortal fulfills the promises of the originally proposed Game Boy Diablo port, or if it will go on to become its own unique entry in the Diablo franchise.

Diablo Immortal is expected to release on Android and iOS devices later this year.

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