https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/onak5fwG
While StarCraft has already been announced for a remaster, Warcraft 3 and Diablo II have not. These positions being advertised are (at least to me) part of an early PR push (wording like “that which was, with what will be” aren’t meant to be vague) to at least get players and the media to speculate about what is looking like will be the inevitable; actual remastered versions (ala StarCraft) of Warcraft 3 and Diablo II.
D2 will take the longest to achieve this though because of the fact that it’s an ARPG (far more sprite animations) and also uses a physics (2D) engine (Havok) that was not developed internally by Blizzard. A remaster entails not changing the actual engine and game systems; just updating the assets and UI so that they scale for modern day displays. StarCraft being an RTS is far easier to remaster the graphics and animations but even that has taken them around an year to get the work done.
David Brevik (Blizzard North co-founder and lead designer of D1 and D2) gave his thoughts on this in an interview (with more specific details in the DiabloII.net podcast) back in April where he explains the reasons why he felt (at the time of the interview) as to why it might be almost impossible to do a D2 remaster. I do understand where he is coming from on the technical side in terms of how those older games were made and why changing its engine or any game play behavior will end up changing the way the game feels.
Like there will be some players who would want many of the QoL changes in D3 to go to D2 (like auto pickup of gold as an example) or larger personal bag and stash. I personally believe that for D2, remastering the graphics and cinematics is fine but everything else needs to remain the same (that also includes the lobby) in order to keep the game play feeling the same. I already know that won’t appeal to players who have only played D3 but never D2 because one of D3’s major plus is its visceral/impactful combat.
It looks like Blizzard is going to try to give it a shot since they probably want to gain the most out of the production process they created for remastering the assets for StarCraft for both Warcraft and Diablo II. With that said, a D2 remaster is going to be at least 2+ years down the line once they fill these positions (I’m presuming they will try to end up shooting for the franchise’ 25th anniversary which would be in 2021).
