As expected (though at least an year late), the remastered HD version of Diablo II (includes Lord of Destruction) was announced by Blizzard Entertainment at their online only BlizzConline. Players are being encouraged to sign up for a chance at being selected to the technical alpha.
The game will be available for PC (Windows) and console with cross play progression, and has a release date before the end of December 2021. It’s not 100% true to the original game systems since there are enhancements such as larger and shared stash as well as heavier reliance on Battle.net (for social and networking functionality) which means it is online only. Correction. There IS an OFFLINE (aka single player) mode like the original. And like the original, those characters cannot be used online. The game will also officially support MODS.
The game can be pre-ordered now for $39.99 or $59.99 for the Prime Evil Collection which also includes Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, Necromancer Pack, and a Mephisto cosmetic pet and Hatred Wings for D3 (players who already own any of the D3 games can upgrade at a pro-rated amount). Pre-ordering does not grant access to the technical alpha. Given the fiasco that was WarCraft III: Reforged, I’d suggest NOT pre-ordering since this is primarily a move to juice Activision Blizzard’s revenues (disclaimer: I still own ATVI).
Myself, I’m not sure if I will return to playing any Blizzard game. My reaction to this announcement was tepid at best (part of it is because my interests have diverged from the old ARPG format). There was also updated news with Diablo IV and Diablo Immortal (neither interest me at this time either).
UPDATE: offline mode and mod support has piqued my interest. Mods are what really made D2/LOD shine in terms of replayability.
I’m watching some of the in-depth videos about this and it is interesting. The core game is still intact (updated for modern architecture and with some “is this too much” vetting when it came to adding QoL aspects to the game; some which can be disabled like auto gold pickup) and runs at the original 25 FPS (since as David Brevik detailed in various interviews, is how the core game play logic ran). The updated 3D graphics runs as a layer at a higher frame rate over the original logic and can be toggled off on the fly (revealing the original 2D sprite graphics). Basically, they’ll be able to maintain the feel of the original game play.
They learned a lot from looking at the Diablo I source code (much of which was clean room reverse engineered by Devilution project since it seemed like Blizzard lost the full source after an office relocation move in their earlier days) which Brevik also provided insight on (including how parts of the game play was done out of frame given how CRT’s worked). They also discovered more source material including artwork and gained more insight from the design documents that were in Blizzard’s famed vault
UPDATE 2: The remaster is in very capable hands; Vicarious Visions is handling the work (they worked on the remasters for Tony Hawk and Crash Bandicoot). They were previously a subsidiary studio of Activision (acquired in 2005) that became a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment (due to their involvement in this project) in January 2021 (everyone there is now considered a Blizzard employee).
My initial tepid reaction to this announcement now has me a lot more interested knowing that this project isn’t being handled by the usual Blizzard Entertainment teams.
