Designing ‘Diablo 4’s heavy metal monsters sounds like the coolest job in gaming

If you’ve never heard of Diablo, here’s a primer. Thrust into the hellish world of Sanctuary, where reanimated corpses crawl out of sinkholes and giant pus-dribbling trolls lurk around every cursed corner, you must slash, bewitch and repel such horrifying enemies while searching cavernous dungeons for shiny loot. This is a seriously badass collection of video games. The titular, horned big bad, a supreme demon descended from the shattered remains of a seven-headed dragon, looks like something you’d find on a particularly nasty emo gig poster or your coolest metal band t-shirt. Read more: ‘Elden Ring’ saved Serena Cherry’s life – so she made an extreme metal album about it In fact, there are more skulls to be crushed in a Diablo level than you’ll find on all 17 Iron Maiden album covers put together. Which begs the question: to which assortment of occult-obsessed crazies, to what rogues’ gallery of Satanic spooksters and to whose bloodthirsty, depraved imaginations was the task of creating all these monsters actually given? Two of those responsible are Jayne Johnston, senior lead VFX artist, and Owen Leach, lead monster designer – who both worked on the latest and most successful ins...