Lead Diablo artists say the best way to design endless spiky armor sets is to go look at anything that isn't Diablo: 'You can come back with a fresh mind and create new things'

In April, I had a chance to ask lead Diablo 4 developers how tough it is for their dev teams to continue coming up with ominous names for gameplay activities when they've spent 30 years exhausting every thesaurus in the demonic lexicon. Their answer: Pretty tough.

Last week, PC Gamer spoke to the lead artists in the Diablo franchise, and we took the opportunity to pitch a similar question. After designing thousands of barbed, demonic armor pieces, how do they stay inspired when they have to design new Diablo gear pieces and ghouls—whether for Berserk collaborations or otherwise?

"What I encourage for the art team is to get out from Diablo once in a while," Diablo Immortal lead artist Emil Salim said. "On the weekend, stop looking at Diablo imagery. Go to the museum, go to experience other things, go to Coachella, go look at various really different forms of art. That's where a lot of the original ideas come from."

It's a common refrain among artists and creatives of all stripes. An artist who only ever ingests material from one mode or medium will, eventually, descend into stagnation. It's true across disciplines: If you want to write about videogames, for example, you'll write better if you're taking time for movies, books, music—anything that exposes you to other ideas that you can incorporate into your work.

According to Salim, even the equally grim Berserk collaboration provided some useful variety for the Diablo Immortal team.

"Having this kind of collab really helped us in the art team, because visually, it gives us a refresh," Salim said. "We have all of this visual library in our minds as artists right? Working on something different, like during a collab, really helped us reset that visual library. Now that we're done with the collab and moving back into our regular designs, it helps us come up with new ideas."

Lead Diablo 4 artist Viviane Kosty echoed the sentiment.

"Think about cooking, right? You eat your own food and then you go experience other cuisines in the world so that you can draw similarities and compare flavors, profiles, spices, and ingredients, and then you can come back with a fresh mind and create new things," Kosty said. "Art is very similar to cooking and fashion and all other art forms out there. You should always know what you're making and what else other people are making, and that's how you can create."