Diablo 2 Resurrected is the remaster that hardcore fans of the series have been waiting for. It brings back the perfect blend of new with upscaled graphics and shared stash tabs and old with the same gameplay and builds that fans remember.
Diablo 2 Resurrected also brings back the hardcore nature of games that were more unforgiving than many games are nowadays such as a more punishing character death and quicker gameplay.
Consequences for Character Death
In Diablo 1, if a player dies in single-player, the game ends and they must restart from their last save. This wasn't uncommon with games from the past, but nowadays games have automatic checkpoints so that if players do end up getting a game over, it isn't as punishing. Players playing the multiplayer in Diablo 1 who had a character die will have all of their carried items drop at that spot.
Players optionally could have their friend's character cast the Resurrect Spell to revive the player whose character died. Alternatively, they would be forced to respawn back in town with reduced health and mana, as well as no gear. This makes Diablo 1 quite a difficult game to play through for players not used to games from its era. Being 25 years old, it's even more difficult to play Diablo 1 in 2021.
In Diablo 2, dying in Softcore will have the player's character drop all their equipped gear. Players in this position will have their character revived in the act's town and can then attempt to retrieve their items from their corpse. Though, without any equipped items this can be dangerous as the monsters that were there when they died will still be there. Players had the option to simply restart their game, and their last corpse will spawn in town the next time they log in.
However, if players make the attempt to get their items back and die again, then more corpses will be created and the last corpse that spawns in town during a restart would not be their first corpse with their equipment. This is but a small sample size of the game mechanics players might have forgotten about in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
Players of Diablo 2 who play Hardcore difficulty and die will lose their characters permanently whether single-player or multiplayer, losing all progression and items on that character and in that character's stash. In Diablo 3, this same rule applies to Hardcore characters, though Softcore character deaths are much more lenient. Diablo 3 allows players to revive their character on the spot for a limited amount of time under loose restrictions. Though, this may have not even been the vision the original Diablo developer had for Diablo 3.
No Cooling Down
In Diablo 2, there were no cooldowns like in Diablo 3, only Casting Delay. Casting Delay was not affected by the Faster Cast Rate stat (as that only impacted the casting animation), but it was a few-second delay for a handful of skills. This only ever went upwards of 6 seconds with skills such as the Amazon's Valkyrie skill, the Druid's Armageddon and Hurricane skills, and a few others. Any other Casting Delay was less than 6 seconds, much less than some of the skills in Diablo 3 that had cooldowns upwards of 3 minutes or more. As a result, Diablo 2 was a much faster-paced game which meant, in the blink of an eye, a player could lose their character.
Diablo 2 Resurrected will surely bring back the feeling players had when they didn't have a game hold their hand all the way through. Getting to the endgame areas in Diablo 2 Resurrected won't reward players with a complete set of gear like in Diablo 3 seasons. Comparatively, gear will be much more difficult to attain in Diablo 2 Resurrected and players looking to build their characters quickly will find that to be a tough endeavor.
In Diablo 2 Resurrected, players build their characters through the stat distribution and skill point decisions as well as the gear they find. Players unfamiliar with the game mechanics will have to make tough decisions as, unlike in Diablo 3, their character build isn't dictated by simply the gear they are wearing, but more so the choices they make when leveling up their chosen class. This, coupled with the diverse range of useful items and dynamic crafting options, makes Diablo 2 Resurrected a breath of fresh air for fans of the more hardcore playstyle.
Diablo 2: Resurrected launches later this year for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.