Darksiders II and the Diablo III Connection

We've been following Vigil Games' Darksiders II ever since it was revealed that the team was taking it into an action RPG direction, and it's that direction that forms the emphasis of this new commentary-laden preview on VG247 that compares the game to Diablo III. Vigil marketing rep Jay Fitzloff is the one sharing details:
The game shows instant stats and comparisons to your current gear. Fitzloff grabs and equips a pair of boot as an example. The first game had nothing of this: there were move upgrades and new weapons to find, but this is RPG looting with rare items and bunk to sell. It's taken a second game to be able to fit it all in.

(This is something we wanted to have in the first Darksiders, but there's a lot more that goes into the making a game the first time; the engine-building, feeling stuff out, and so on. Stuff just got left on the cutting room floor,) says Fitzloff.

(But this time we have the time and staff to do it.)

If you were in any doubt as to the new direction, every world in the game there are four has a central town where you can buy, sell, trade, train talents, chat to NPCs and take on side-quests. It's an action-RPG.

...

(It's a conscious choice because we knew we were using these fantastic elements, but I don't think we ever sat down and said, '˜We're going to turn this game into an RPG,' or, '˜We're going to make it look fantasy.' It was a natural progression.)

While the second-to-second gameplay of fighting mobs and traversing environments is still at the core of Vigil's baby, the hugeness of the changes from the first to second Darksiders games isn't lost on Fitzloff. The risk is worth it, he says.

(We were making a sequel, so the easiest thing would have been to put War in the second game. The same moves, the same environments. Bigger. Maybe we're masochists, but that's just boring. We wanted to do something different. For the sequel we wanted to do a new horseman, to move it forward.