So you’re an old Diablo 2 fan waiting to relive the glory of one of your favorite games of all time in high resolution in the form of a Diablo 2 remastered version, hopefully with some nifty new enhancements. Join the club! With the amazing game Diablo 2 is, it’s no wonder that fans like us can’t wait for any news or updates on an officially potential Diablo 2 remaster or remake for modern resolutions.
Diablo 2 Remaster Status: Latest News
It’s official! The Blizzard Diablo 2 Remaster, Diablo 2: Resurrected, has been announced at Blizzcon 2021. It has a release data sometime in 2021, though the exact data has not been confirmed yet.
Earlier this year in May this year a French source that has a reliable track record of predicting Blizzard secrets announced they had received a leak about a Diablo 2 remastered version titled “Diablo 2: Resurrected”. Many popular sites were quick to follow up on the news and its possible implications, though nothing has been officially confirmed.
In January 2021, a private source confirmed that a Diablo 2 remake was in production by members of Blizzard owned Vicarious Visions who are being dismantled and assimilated with Blizzard. Many popular gaming sites confirmed the news and echoed the same information that the stupid has been confirmed to be working on an official Diablo 2 remaster. This is great news for fans and is the closest we have ever come to official confirmation on the remaster!
Evil Has Survived
All the way back in 2017 many fans were left disappointed after Diablo 2’s original developers went on record to say that making an official Diablo 2 remaster would be incredibly difficult due to both missing source code for the game and also the resolution specific tweaks that were done to give the game it’s look and feel. Think good ol’ 640×480 and 800×600 resolutions for an idea of how far we are going back. But with the spate of recent Blizzard remasters including both Starcraft and Warcraft 3, if there were ever a time to have your ears perked out for new updates, the time would be now. Unfortunately, at the end of the day only time will tell if our prayers will be answered.
The Official Announcement of a Diablo 2 Remake from Blizzard
Against all the odds, Blizzard has finally announced that Diablo 2: Resurrected is coming and is here to stay.
With the failure of Blizzards’ Warcraft 3 remaster in many fans eyes, Blizzard has a lot to prove in this remaster of such a popular game that is likely to receive a huge backlash from the community if it falls flat.
After all, the last thing we want is to be teased with the idea of an amazing remaster, only to get a dulled down limp corpse of a remaster that takes one step forward and two steps back. Luckily, from what we’ve seen so far Diablo 2: Resurrected appears set to live up to our expectations with an amazing new graphics engine that runs atop of the original game itself and promises to leave much of the original Diablo 2 experience intact.
Previous Diablo 2 developers have been outspoken when it comes to the idea of a remake, in no small part due to the fact that during Diablo 2’s original development the main backup of the project became corrupted, which allegedly meant that the game had to be recreated from code on individual developers computers causing a ton of important files to be lost in the process. Many said at the time that this meant a Diablo 2 remaster could likely “not be the same game” due to much of the code needing to redone from scratch after being hacked together for the original game launch.
Did we mention Diablo 2 ended up being one of the best games of all friggin’ time? Hats off and a moment of silence please for David Brevik and the rest of the original Diablo 2 development team for all of the pain they went through to bring us this masterpiece. Whether or not these files can be recovered or recreated in a way that doesn’t lose touch with the original is open for debate, though it’s clear at the very least in some aspects it could be a different game altogether at least from a code perspective.
With that out the way, let’s move on to some positive karma to hope that the Diablo gods are hard at work on an amazing remaster!
The Good News: Steady Demand from Fans for Diablo 2 Remaster & Amazing Fan Made Mods
Despite its age, interest in Diablo 2 has seemingly defied the test of time completely, with a dedicated fanbase of players and enthusiasts still trawling the halls of hell like it’s 2000 over twenty years later. Luckily for those of us who would murder a hoard of demons just be able to play a Diablo 2 remaster today, there are amazing fan made mods available including Project Diablo 2 which have already done such an amazing job of enhancing the original Diablo 2 experience that it puts Blizzard to shame for taking so long. If you are more interested in an official remaster, I personally admit to having more fun playing a rerun of Diablo 2 than I did playing Diablo 3 in its entirety, which is no small feat, and even more fun playing the recently released fan made remaster Project Diablo 2.
Sure, one could put some of it down to raw nostalgia, but there is something more – the Diablo 2 had a certain polish and immersion that is quite hard to put one’s finger on even after careful inspection. This is what drives the hopes from fans for a Diablo 2 remake that will live up to the hype and give fans and new players alike a taste of hell’s old glory, hopefully as a teaser just before we get our hands on Diablo 4 (and that is assuming Diablo 4 is any good in the end).
Of course, this is all just wishful thinking at the end of the day – but it sure as hell is better than wishing Diablo 3 would turn into the gem that it deserved to be. Despite being a good game, it lacked the greatness of its predecessors in a way that could only leave true die-hard fans wanting more.
Our own research using Google Ads keyword data suggests that there are between 100 000 – 1 000 000 people searching for Diablo 2 on Google every single month. At the very least, this should show that Blizzard would have a huge monetary incentive tapping into an amazing fanbase like ours. Knowing the path Blizzard has taken since their Activision takeover, you can be sure executives are eyeing out these numbers eagerly.
Diablo 4: Will We Get Diablo 4 Before Diablo 2 Remastered?
If there’s one thing that will be sure to satisfy the cravings of the Diablo community enough to put off the idea of a Diablo 2 remaster, it’s definitely the hotly anticipated Diablo 4.
After the disappointment of Diablo 3 for me personally, it took me some time to warm up the idea of Diablo 4. It was only after watching the trailer one day without watching the intro (so I had no idea that it was Diablo at all) that is really caught my attention.
Such was the trauma of a failed Diablo 3 launch and a game that clearly did not lift up to it’s predecessors, though in all honestly that was always going to be a herculean task. The above said, I highly recommend skipping the intro on the video below for your objective opinion if you too have been emotionally scarred by Diablo 3.
Diablo 2 is especially relevant here as Diablo 4 is being hyped precisely for its return to the dark atmosphere so prevalent in Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 that was seemingly lost in the color orgy that ended up being Diablo 3.
That said though, with the disappointing hype versus reality we are used to from Blizzard lately, we can we really trust that they are taking this seriously? Our only solace lies in the fact that Activison-Blizzard company executives, after canceling Diablo 3’s additional planned expansions, were cited as saying openly that Diablo 3 had been a failure despite perceived commercial and critical success.
This is a statement that, unfortunately, I tend to agree with. Being the greedy corporate machine that Activision-Blizzard has turned into, we can only hope that the loss of loyalty from fans over Diablo 3 was really enough for executives to take notice and ensure that Diablo 4 lives up to all our greatest expectations and more.
Where to Next?
If you have made it this far and you are still here and chewing at the bit for something to sink your teeth into there is, fortunately, there is one last solution (asides from whipping out your phone and trying out the new Diablo Immortal game on the toilet).
In the wait for a Diablo 2: Resurrected to be launched and Diablo 4, there is no shame in whipping out your old CRT (if you want to take it that far) and reliving the glory of Diablo 2 by simply playing the original all over again or, ideally with the addition of the recent Project Diablo 2 mod which adds some amazing new features and enhancements already. s farming items, but for a true adventurer, this should be no excuse not to relive hells glory. Best yet – Project Diablo 2 have their own dedicated servers that are completely bot free!
You may even be surprised at how well the original itself has stood up to the test of time. Unfortunately, the official Blizzard online community is somewhat dominated by an army of bot
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