With  set to , 2023 will probably be a giant 12 months for motion RPGs. However 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 brand new motion RPG. Particulars on the undertaking are sparse, however what Moon Beast shared with Schaefer was reportedly sufficient to persuade him to return out of retirement.

“We’ve got concepts for altering the style with a unique strategy to development and making an attempt to resolve among the issues which are beholden to PvE video games, particularly video games, just like the Diablo franchise has handled,” Shenk advised GamesBeat. All three males labored on Diablo II. Notably, Shenk is credited as the sport’s lead character artist, and was chargeable for designing the looks of some of the sport’s character courses, together with the necromancer and murderer. Lord of Destruction, Diablo II’s glorious 2001 enlargement, incorporates a tribute to Shenk within the type of a monster you could slay to finish one in every of Act V’s quests.

Schaefer advised GamesBeat Moon Beast at present employs about 12 folks, making it smaller than most of the different studios working within the ARPG style. The excellent news is Schaefer has loads of expertise main small groups. At Runic Video games, he made Torchlight with a workforce of about 25 folks. “I wish to work on initiatives which are enjoyable and genuinely attempt to do one thing completely different,” Schaefer mentioned. “It’s spectacular what the Moon Beast workforce has in-built such a short while. It fired up my creativeness with prospects, and that is an enormous a part of why I wished to return aboard.”