By Sagar V. Mankar 
Industry veterans who helped create the legendary Diablo series are embarking on an exciting new venture. Phil Shenk, Peter Hu, and Erich Schaefer have joined forces to establish Moon Beast Productions, securing $4.5 million to develop what they promise will be a groundbreaking action RPG (ARPG).
The Legacy Behind the Team
To understand the significance of this announcement, let’s look back at these developers’ impressive history. The original Diablo, released in 1997, wasn’t just successful – it revolutionized the gaming industry. Despite action RPGs existing before its release, Diablo’s unique approach helped it sell over 2.5 million copies and inspired countless imitators.
The team followed this success with Diablo 2 in 2000, which proved even more influential. With more than 15 million units sold, it’s widely considered one of the greatest games in the genre and continues to influence game design today.
A New Vision with Moon Beast Productions
Moon Beast Productions isn’t trying to simply recreate past successes. According to Erich Schaefer, the studio’s chief creative director, the team has spent two decades dreaming about creating a more open and dynamic ARPG. Their approach focuses on working “smarter, not harder” to push the genre in new directions.
While specific details about the game remain under wraps, the team emphasizes their desire to go “beyond the genre’s traditional design templates” while returning to what made the early Diablo games so special.
While Diablo 4 is one of the dominating forces in the genre right now, the recent release of Path of Exile 2 shows that good action RPGs are always welcome by the audience. The latter game has already gained over 500k peak players on Steam with an impressive 87 Metacritic score, which speaks volumes.
The team’s experience with the original Diablo games, which themselves were revolutionary despite modest budgets by today’s standards, suggests they know how to maximize their resources for maximum impact.
We’ll continue to follow Moon Beast Productions’ progress as more details about their project emerge.