Diablo III Art Interview

Also within the thirty-fourth issue of PCGZine is an interview with Diablo III art director Chris Lichtner and lead technical artist Julian Love. The Q&A can be downloaded in MP3 format or, if you prefer, a transcript is included:
Did you start out looking at Diablo II again and use that as a starting point for the look of III, or did you feel that you were creating a new game from scratch, perhaps what Diablo II might have been like had it been designed today?

(CL) I think we definitely looked at Diablo I and II. We looked at all the things we liked about them and what brought fans back to the franchise and all the Diablo games - to us that's a huge thing. Also, it's important that we make a game that still holds true to how well we like those games and also new things that we are doing. It becomes a 'give and take' between a lot of different things to make sure we get the feel and the look, but at the same time support the gameplay we want to have.