It did feel closer to Diablo 2, but the legendary second game remains to-date one of the most popular variants of the genre in existence. Blizzard acknowledged the fan backlash and even attempted to revert the colorful palette of Diablo 3 to the significantly darker and scarier Reaper of Souls expansion.
The chosen visual style was a hard shift for the series, which relied on disturbing aesthetics before that. While the game wasn’t bad, fans of the original dark and grim Diablo titles were disappointed with how Diablo 3 looked upon the release. The darker aesthetics are more in-line with what the fan community expected, and could’ve contributed to a more positive reception, which, instead, was rather mixed when Diablo 3 released.
A few unearthed Diablo 3 screenshots have surfaced demonstrating that the initial visual style of the game was much closer to Diablo 2.
