Blizzard’s main staples have increasingly become PC only. While Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo have all graced consoles before, their newest iterations are all chained to the click-centric mouse-and-keyboard confines of the PC. Real-Time Strategy games are undoubtedly best using a mouse and keyboard; analogue thumb-sticks aren’t particularly well suited to panning over maps at speed – but Diablo’s different.
As a click-heavy action RPG, it could actually be even better on consoles, something even Blizzard considers.
"One of the reasons why we’re exploring the idea of a console version of Diablo 3 because we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console," Jay Wilson, Diablo III’s game director Jay Wilson said to PC Gamer. "With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I’ve been ‘Oh this feels even better, with direct control…’", he added.
Blizzard has teased the prospect of a console version of Diablo III on more than a few occasions, and it’s starting to look more and more likely. Curiously, a console port could even lead to gamepad support on the PC version. "I can pretty much guarantee that if we decide to do a console version that we will look to support a pad on the PC," Wilson postulated. "But initially with release I don’t think we’ll be ready."
As one of those heathen PC gamers who actually prefers using a gamepad to the traditional Mouse+Keyboard set up, this is pretty good news – mostly because I don’t want to have to buy a new mouse after having clicked its left button in to oblivion.
As an aside, our own Nick is currently playing the Diablo III Beta (feel free to hurl verbal abuse in his direction), and you can look forward to our impressions soon.
Last Updated: September 22, 2011
