In light of the whole argument about the new COLOR in Diablo 3 screenshots, you’d expect someone to lose their job. Not so this time, Brian is leaving on his own accord. What’s more, Blizzard said that Brian’s art direction is nothing short of amazing!

Part of Morrisroe’s legacy will likely be the somewhat controversial art design for Diablo III, which fans lambasted vocally in online petitions for what they thought was a lapse in its predecessor’s traditionally bleak, Gothic look.

“This change won’t impact the game,” continued the statement. “We’re really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring onboard will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.”

If you ask me, that’s like making a pink Harley Davidson and then say it’s just like we always wanted.

I must say I’m impressed with the result (see below). Not Blizzard though. Jay Wilson, designer for Diablo 3 speaks out:

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.

Let me know what you think. I understand these shadows can be tough to do in a 3D engine but let’s not forget Diablo 3 is supposed to be gothic horror, not cartoon-like fantasy like WoW!

UPDATE: Diablo 3 is OFFICIAL! Live news from the event:

12:15 — Announcement…..!! Guy playing Diablo music on an acoustic guitar…

12:18 — Footage of large scale battles, comets streaking across the sky, demons, Diablo 3 officially announced.

12:20 — Jay Wilson, lead designer on Diablo 3 coming out. He’s going to demo the game.

12:20 — It’s apparently still an action RPG. Same interface — red
health and blue orbs. Skill bar at bottom. 3/4 overhead perspective.
Character with 2 axes hacking at demons in what appears to be a foggy
cathedral. Has a jumping attack where he smashes the two axes into the
ground.

(Watch Diablo 3 trailer here)

12:21 — The axe guy is the barbarian class. Says improvements have
been made, like the hotbar for skills. Using the mouse wheel and tab
key you can quickly switch between skills. Whoing inventory. Appears to
still have slot limits. Using enchanted axes with frost and lighting
,which stuns and freezes opponents.

12:25 — Each piece of gear is custom designed for each class. Barbarian puts on demonic sort of garb with giant devil horns. Barbarian can hop across gaps on the map. Barbarian dislodged a rock wall and dropped it on zombies, killing them. Demoing moving whirlwind attack.

12:33 — Witch doctor can cast out locus swarm, which spreads between targets and deals damage. Can summon mongrel things that he can cast locust swarm on, which buffs their damage. Outdoor environment now. Quite pretty in that vibrant, slightly cartoonish Blizzard graphical style. Like with StarCraft 2 and it’s similarities to the original, Diablo 3 looks and sounds, at least at a glance, quite similar to previous games. Witch doctor also has a mass fear type of ability.

12:36 — Multiplayer will work over battle.net. Heads into a final fight against some gigantic moving trees. Final boss here, called siegebreaker assault beast, is absolutely gigantic, maybe around six or seven times taller than the player characters.

12:37 — Demo ends. The crowd roars…

Update: Diablo 3 release date has been tentatively set to follow the launch of Starcraft 2 and Battle.net 2.0 some time in early 2009.

The Barbarian hacking through skeletons. Note the duel-wield.

The Witch Doctor and his mass-effect spells. I guess he’s the new Sorceress!

This is a close-up of the armor. Note the level of details. It looks proper 3D.

It’s the Witch Doctor again. Note the depth of the level. It looks pre-rendered but it’s certainly beautiful.

Enter the Boss! It looks five times bigger than the character!

You can download the high-quality version from Blizzard’ssite.