With Diablo 2: Resurrected releasing today, fans of the series are likely curious to see just how different the modern remaster compares to the original, which was released twenty-one years ago. Diablo 2 stands out as one of the most pivotal releases in Blizzard's long history. It defined the ARPG dungeon-crawler genre, as countless titles released afterward took queues from Diablo 2. Though the Diablo series has been on the back-burner the past few years, and Activision-Blizzard is under a microscope due to sexual misconduct allegations, Diablo 2: Resurrected seems to be a return to form.
While franchise fans will likely have to wait several more years until either Diablo 4 and Diablo: Immortal releasw, there seem to be enough substantial changes in Diablo 2: Resurrected to hold the attention of new and old fans alike. With the remaster outsourced to Vicarious Visions, the development of those other games in the series was likely not paused or impacted because of Diablo 2: Resurrected. Regardless, Vicarious Visions has made a long list of modifications and improvements from the original title, ranging from a majoe graphical overhaul to quality-of-life gameplay changes.
Diablo 2 Visual and Auditory Changes
Even though Diablo 2 is a twenty-one-year-old game, its visuals and art direction allowed it to age much better than its contemporaries. With that said, not touching or updating the visuals at all would be a mistake. Thankfully, Vicarious Visions completely revamped the character modesl and ability effects. The addition of 3D graphics and completely refreshed effects will bring the game into the next generation. Still, some die-hard fans of Diablo 2 might not want the refreshed graphics and instead just want to relive the game exactly as it was, but with some modern bells and whistles. Fortunately, those fans are in luck, as there is an option to switch between which graphical style the player wants.
Some modern remasters just update the gameplay graphics and leave the cutscenes exactly as they are. This can lead to a somewhat jarring gameplay experience, as the player switches between modern and old-school visuals. Fortunately, this remaster will avoid this issue through Diablo 2: Resurrected's new cutscenes, which were made entirely from scratch. Not only with this give new players an easier time when trying to get into the game and its storyline, but older fans should be happy to see their favorite characters animated in new and exciting ways.
As mentioned, Diablo 2 did not age awfully in terms of visuals, but the audio leaves something to be desired in 2021. The fighting sounds in particular do not hold up particularly well today due to the low variance and overall quality of the recordings. Given that fighting is something players will be doing a lot of while playing Diablo 2: Resurrected, it's definitely a good thing that these very common noises will be getting updated. However, not every sound has or could be changed. Diablo 2 has some iconic tracks and noises, such as a skull being moved to the inventory, and those will remain the same. The game will also support Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound in order to get players even more immersed as they take on the titular Diablo.
Quality-of-Life Changes
One of the most difficult things for modern gamers to overcome when playing the original version was Diablo 2's performance. The game ran at a base twenty-five frames-per-second which was fine in the year 2000, but unacceptable today. Thankfully, Diablo 2: Resurrected will run at a more modern sixty FPS. This change will not only make the game feel better, but should make it much easier to navigate and dodge the many abilities and traps that will be targeted at the player and their party. Furthermore, the remaster is fully optimized for modern operating systems like Windows 10. Attempting to play the original Diablo 2 on Windows 10 can lead to headaches and confusion, especially for those gamers who aren't as tech-savvy as others.
While it is a great thing that Diablo 2: Resurrected will be on more platforms than just the original PC, it lacks cross-play between these many platforms. There is, however, cross-progression as long as the player links their Battle.net account to their favored platforms. Yet, even this requires at least two purchases of the same game. This can easily be three separate purchases if the player wants to play on PC, a next-gen console, and Switch. It's a pretty big misstep for Blizzard to get some much-needed goodwill within the industry, but at the very least it is consistent with its other releases such as Overwatch. Diablo 2: Resurrected will not replace the original version on Battle.net, so it seems like Blizzard has learned from the Warcraft 3: Reforged issue.
One of the few big issues with the original Diablo 2 was the stash system. Many players often created burner characters just to transfer weapons and armor in between characters and builds. Diablo 2: Resurrected will include a large shared stash so that players can easily transfer items from one character or class to another with no hassle. Whe combined with the automatic pickup of gold and small items, this means that players' inventories and pockets will be full. It's a nice quality-of-life change that saves countless clicks and one that has been implemented in nearly every modern ARPG, including Diablo 3. Like with other significant changes, there are undoubtedly some in the community that want an experience as close to the original Diablo 2 as possible, so the auto-loot is also toggleable.
Two terms that often get misused interchangeably in the gaming industry are "remake" and "remaster". The former denotes an entirely ground-up experience such as the recently announced Knights of the Old Republic and Demon's Souls, while the latter changes fewer things about a title and uses much of the same code. Diablo 2: Resurrected is very much a remaster, as its content is largely the same with no additions or subtractions. Vicarious Visions just makes a lot of relatively minor adjustments, with the goal of bringing the game up to modern sensibilities. The option to utilize each featur, as well as accessibility options like color-blind mode, help make Diablo 2: Resurrected a very flexible remaster that can cater to long-time fans while still being a great entry point for newcomers.
Diablo 2: Resurrected is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.