Diablo III

And it's about combos. Although his resource system is currently a standard pool of magic-user mana, the Monk is defined by combos. His core physical attacks all come in three stages, each activated by a subsequent click. Way of the Hundred Fists' dash attack segues into a flurry of blows into huge area-of-effect blast; the Exploding Palm chain ends in a damage-over-time bleed effect that, if the enemy dies while it's still applied, will start a messy chain reaction of bloody explosions. But the combo counter is global across the skills, so you can mix-and-match the effects of two or (if you're quick with hotkeys) three chains, much like hot-swapping weapons mid-combo in God of War.

It's a very clever way to mix up the rather repetitious hammering of Diablo melee combat, and to give the Monk enough tools to survive the huge scrums of demons that roam the sand-blown desert locale of this demo, despite his low defences. He'll take some mastering though, initial impressions being of a chaotic, frantic scramble to stay on the knife-edge when things get busy. With the emphasis moving off potions (still in the game, but expensive and for sparing use) and on to health drops, you need to stay in the fray to stay alive, so I move on to the thick-skinned Barbarian for a more leisurely exploration of the demo.

The Barbarian

Wilson: "We really tried to amp the Barbarian up from not just being a dude who swings a weapon. We really tried to build a lot of really interesting, cool attack skills in there - seismic slam, cleave, these are all kind of massive physical attacks that can damage over a large area... [The Fury resource system] puts some interesting choices in the class that really could be the most humdrum. There is a certain design philosophy behind the Barbarian, though, that he is for the players who want to wade in to combat, they want to be really tough and resilient and take a lot of incoming damage, and so a lot his skills play into that as well. He can debuff enemies, he can recover health, he's just flat-out tougher."

He certainly is that. Although Wilson personally thinks the Witch Doctor is the easiest class to play currently, my survival rate is highest with this murderous juggernaut, perhaps because he's the easiest to grasp at this low level (around level 12). The corollary is that his skills are the least interesting, consisting mainly of smash one monster, smash many monster, make all monster weak, make self strong.

But as Wilson says, it's the way that those skills play into his Fury resource that give the Barbrain more depth. Like an accelerated version of a World of Warcraft Warrior's rage, Fury is built up by dealing and sustaining damage. It's built up very fast, but only really if you use skills appropriate to your situation - single-target for one-on-one fights, multi-target like Cleave for wading through the crowds. Play mindlessly, and the Barbarian feels somewhat lethargic and unsatisfying. Pay close attention to tactics and context however, and you build up enough Fury that you can spam his show-stopping blows at will, building up unstoppable momentum.

It's clear that even at its most basic, Diablo III has far more to think about, far more mechanical sophistication than its predecessors. "Is it more considered? Yes, that is our goal," says Wilson. "To make a game that... well, we don't want chess. We want an action game. But we do want an action game that does occasionally make you think, challenge you, make you approach a situation in a different way... Creating a combat model that has a bit more depth is I think one of the keys to moving the series forward."

The difference won't be so apparent at Normal difficulty, he says, but on higher settings Diablo III will become more cerebral, rather than just more unforgiving. "One of the things that happened in Diablo II was that they didn't have a lot of options to make the game hard, because they had a player with endless health, that can get away from any situation. The only real option against a player like that, as a designer, is to kill them. That's a terrible device to use against your player. You want them to actually feel the game be hard before they die."