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GameSpot: Once Diablo was wrapped up, how did you work your way onto the Diablo II project?
Max: We looked back at Diablo and thought about what it was going to take to make Diablo II that much better and that much bigger. And we realized that there really could be no one art director on it because the project is absolutely enormous. I mean there is a huge amount of art work and technical stuff that goes into making it. And we realized that it would really make sense to split up the art department into characters and backgrounds. My brother Eric did all of the backgrounds the first time around, and he wanted to do something different. And since I have an architectural background, it made sense for me to do the backgrounds.

GameSpot: So you're in charge of all backgrounds. Do you have a team of artists working with you?
Max: Yes, I sure do. I have five other artists who are working with me, and [there are] a couple of programmers who we work very closely with. That is a much, much bigger team than we had on Diablo.

GameSpot: And now you have?
Max: Now we've got six on the background team alone and probably more than that on the character team. So we really doubled the size.

GameSpot: So what would be considered a background? Anything that is not a moving character or monster?
Max: Correct. It's the entire environment, the buildings, the ground, the shrines, things you interact with.

GameSpot: What was the size of the art team in total for Diablo, for both background and characters?
Max: On the core team we had about... seven or eight artists tops. For everything.

When designing levels, the artists first draw out their vision of the environment.

Next: Designing environments