Some of the original developers behind classic PC titles Diablo & Diablo II have gotten together to work on a new "next-generation" ARPG.
Darkhaven, as the in-development game is called, is the work of the indie startup Moonbeast Productions, which is a company formed in 2021 by a group of devs who had previously helped create Diablo and Diablo II at Blizzard. This includes Diablo senior designer and art director Erich Schaefer, Diablo II lead character artist and story/dialog writer Phil Shenk, and the Diablo II programmer Peter Hu.
The Diablo connection doesn't stop there, either, with other former Diablo devs like Brian Fitzgerald (Diablo, Diablo II), Anthony Revero (Diablo II), Colin Day (Diablo III), and Eric McNine (Diablo IV) also being listed on the company's website as part of the Moon Beast Productions team.
Darkhaven is described on its Steam page as "a dark-fantasy isometric ARPG set in the aftermath of a total collapse of civilization". You play as a survivor in "a world where the wild lands and monsters have reclaimed the ruins of long-dead empires." As a result, you "must venture beyond the safety of your meager stronghold to hunt the remnants of evil and become the hero this world awaits."
Darkhaven will include the ability to play solo, co-operatively, or in "high-stakes PvP-enabled realms", with one of the most exciting features being the promise of "totally dynamic worlds" that will change depending on the player's actions. Some of the examples of this include being able to dig and tunnel through earth to discover hidden caves and break through dungeon walls; rebuild ruined fortresses, and drain lakes and redirect lava flows.
These changes apparently persist in your world even when you're offline, with the devs claiming that they are building "unprecedented, flexible ways to [...] connect realms together" and "anything from a single-player journey to a massively interconnected, MMO-scale network of realms is possible".
In addition to that, the game will also be fully moddable, with players being able to use Moon Beast Productions' "in-client editor" to "create their own items, monsters, classes, and quests in real-time", even while playing concurrently with others.
There's no release date yet, but the team has announced it will be turning to Kickstarter to raise funds to help with the development costs. It previously raised $4.5 million in seed funding back in 2024.