think up any idea for the animation and cinematicthink up any idea for the animation and cinematic

Earlier versions of the cinematic were much more focused on the characters talking back and forth, mostly about the Eternal Conflict. We ultimately decided it was better to ‘show not tell,’ so we moved away from this direction and instead came up with the idea of establishing the Eternal Conflict by flashing back to it. We loved the concept of angels pouring down from the sky like a waterfall of diamonds into an ocean of demons, but there was no way we could create such sequences and still ship the game on time; it was essentially like adding another entire cinematic relatively late in the schedule.
That’s where the idea of the 2D animations originated. Here, we could show the same backstory in the context of a macabre, living storybook where the images come to life on the page. Through the constraint of time, we came up with the unique ‘storybook’ look for which I think the Diablo III cinematics will be remembered. This storybook grounds the sequence as a flashback — without explicitly explaining that it’s a flashback — and it even gives the viewer the sense that they are witnessing events with the weight of an epic, almost mythological past.