Blizzard: Diablo III with a gamepad ‘feels even better’

Those of you who have knee-jerk reactions should look away now. Actually, the headline is only a tiny snippet of the story here. Diablo III’s appearance on consoles has long been rumored and it looks like Blizzard has admitted to experimenting with alternate control methods for the title, including using an Xbox 360-esque gamepad.

Game director Jay Wilson says Blizzard devs felt that concerning Diablo III, “the control and style of the game lends itself to a console,” adding they had tried a “360-like” controller and “this feels even better with direct control.” It makes sense — I mean, Diablo came out on the PlayStation, after all.

Wilson also stated that the studio doesn’t see itself as a PC developer, rather, “the games we want to make suit the PC platform.” I think if you looked at Blizzard’s franchises, Diablo III’s fast action and combat-heavy style would suit a console release. The Diablo-style Torchlight did well on consoles, so I can’t see not having a mouse and keyboard being a serious drawback if the controls were implemented properly. However, Wilson says there’s no plans to include gamepad support for Diablo III at launch.

Blizzard’s Diablo 3 experiments: “oh this feels even better with direct control” [PC Gamer]