Diablo Veterans Come Together to Create Darkhaven, an Ambitious ARP Experience

Moonbeast Productions is a team comprised of former Diablo and Diablo II veterans looking to bring some competition to the ARPG genre. The debut title the team announced is none other than Darkhaven, an incredibly ambitious experience with tons of promising features.

Unveiled on the official Moon Beast Productions YouTube channel, the team shows off Darkhaven in the announcement trailer. It's a two-minute-long video full of information regarding the upcoming experience, showcasing some of the features that will set the title apart from others competing in the genre.

The talent bringing Darkhaven together comprises decades of experience across all sorts of titles, with developers hailing from Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Diablo III, Hellgate: London, Torchlight, Torchlight II, Nox, and Marvel Heroes Online.

Here are some of the features shown off in the trailer:

• Open-world Exploration
• Vast movement options, including swimming, jumping, climbing, and soaring through the sky to unravel the mysteries of the world.
• Procedurally generated worlds.
• Fully dynamic environments with destructible elements.
• Hidden areas.
• In-depth itemisation.
• Fully playable in online multiplayer co-op and PvP elements.

The trailer is full of pre-alpha footage (meaning it doesn't reflect the final product), but it shows off a lot of these elements in action.

Players will be able to build their character, with runes reflecting as tattoos on the player-made toon, and combat will shape the world around. Large area of effect attacks will impact the terrain, breaking everything around and possibly revealing new sections or completely hidden areas.

With the random-world generation, players will be able to experience Darkhaven uniquely with its vast amount of differences — from underground worlds to sunken temples that players need to drain lakes to uncover. It's set to be formative for the ARPG genre, with seasonal changes, weather alteration, world-altering events, and more.

It's a promising title, though it's far from its official launch. As it stands, the Steam store page has Darkhaven's release date as "Coming soon", and Moonbeast Studios wishes to crowdfund the ambitious title through Kickstarter. It's currently set as a pre-launch campaign that players can follow for notifications on launch.

The banner at the bottom of the Kickstarter page also promises an upcoming demo on Steam, with the crowdfunding efforts towards an Early Access release on Steam sometime in the future (no actual release date in sight).