The long-rumored remaster of Diablo II was finally announced at this year's BlizzConline in February. What makes this particular remaster more noteworthy than most other reworks is that Diablo II has had a significant impact on the evolution of the modern-day action-RPG, influencing other RPG franchises like Destiny and Borderlands. Seeing the classic game return with a new look and tweaks to its gameplay loop has got many fans of the original interested in what's to come. Yet, there's a clear legacy that Diablo II has established since its release in 2000, which means this remaster must walk a fine line between meaningful update and preservation.
Now that the dust has settled, we're here to offer a refresher on all the details we know about Diablo II: Resurrected. During BlizzConline, we had the chance to talk with the game's developers about how the team approached making this remaster. In addition to the new look, Resurrected will add deeper online-functionality and a round of quality-of-life changes that improve the game while retaining what makes the original as it was. According to Blizzard, Diablo II: Resurrected will still be the game that fans have come to enjoy more than twenty years since its release.
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Now Playing: Diablo II Resurrected Reveal Trailer | BlizzCon 2021
On a mechanical level, Resurrected doesn't change much of the core gameplay from the original game--which was the intent, according to Blizzard. However, there are updates to the game that aim to make the dungeon-crawling and power growth less tedious for your chosen class. The biggest change that relates to the flow and management of loot is the new shared stash box, allowing you to easily share items with your different characters. In the original game, if you wanted to share items amongst all your characters, you would have to find an empty server, drop your gear, swap over to a different character, and pick up the items with them to do so. This new mechanic doesn't substantially change the game, but it does make things for the more dedicated players a bit more manageable.
In our talk with game designer Andre Abrahamian, he explained that many of the more esoteric and even antiquated original game elements are still meaningful.
"When we were revisiting Diablo II, even 20 years later, we saw that there's still a lot of great elements of this game," he said. "There's still a lot of enjoyment we could have out of it. So, one of our game pillars is to maintain the fun [of the original]. There's a lot of things in there, a lot of great elements. This is a game that helped define a genre, the action-RPG genre as we know it. Even though it's a dated game, many interesting design elements still carry to this day in interesting ways and add a lot of story moments for players. That's why another gameplay pillar we have, that we like to say, was to 'embrace The Quirks,' which is like a lot of these things about Diablo II, is what makes it Diablo II."
"Diablo II has never been on consoles, so there were a lot of interesting takes on our end on how to approach things," [speaker name] said. "When we approached how to do a console port, a common challenge was that you no longer have a mouse, so how do you approach character movements and use different abilities and targeting? So, Vicarious Visions has a lot of experience with consoles, which helped us a lot with addressing a lot of the technical aspects. We kind of combined our knowledge and ways of syncing with what we've done on Diablo III as well as the knowledge Vicarious Visions knows. So, that was always a great relationship with how we came together and building Diablo II: Resurrection on consoles."
There are various editions of Diablo II: Resurrected to choose from, and they're available at different price points. Below is a rundown of what's available, while you can also check out GameSpot's Diablo II: Resurrected pre-order guide to learn more.
Diablo II: Resurrected is available to preorder digitally on the Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, and Battle.net for $40. You can also add Diablo II: Resurrected to your wishlist on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
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Blizzard is also releasing a new Diablo collection, and it's a great deal if you want to pick up Diablo 3. The Diablo Prime Evil Collection costs $60 and comes with Diablo II: Resurrected and Diablo III: Eternal Collection as well as a couple of in-game items for Diablo III: Hatred's Grasp Wings and Mephisto Pet. It's available to preorder now on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, and Battle.net. You'll be able to access Diablo III and its bonus content immediately if you preorder the Prime Evil Collection.
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