Diablo 2 Remastered has been a long time coming. Fans of the Diablo 2 series have been wanting Blizzard to crack on with a remaster for years and it’s finally here. So what’s in store for the remake of what is the best game in the Diablo series.
The Diablo 2 Resurrected Breakdown
- Vicarious Visions were working on Diablo 2 Resurrected as was rumoured some time ago.
- They are doing it now to bring it to the current audience and it was a learning opportunity for the new team from Vicarious Visions.
- Primary focus was nostalgia for an authentic experience. Reinforce an emotional connection.
- Didn’t want to touch what worked for the game visually so it felt authentic.
- Moving from 2D to 3D was challenging. Had to create a new renderer on top of the original game logic.
- All items have been remodeled.
- They found original documentation from Blizzard North that helped the process.
- They found screenshots that were in 3D which helped create some of the original environments.
- There is now a zoom camera.
- Flip between old and new visuals. It is really the old game running underneath. The new engine runs on top.
- Diablo 2 Resurrected is rendered to give more Frames per second instead of the 25 FPS of the original.
- All logic works exactly the same as the original so it will feel like the original even with their updates running on top.
- The game still respects the original game grid.
- All armour is in the remastered versions and the armour you put on will be the same as the game icons so you see the change.
- Remastered cinematics
- Remastered audio with additional surround sound and more ambiance. Iconic sounds have not been changed.
- Rain will sound better and be more atmospheric, the jungle will be more ambient when it comes to audio.
- Balance, spawn rates an item drops are the same
- A shared stash has been added. You can’t mix ladder with non-ladder. Offline and online characters can’t mix with offline. They saw muling as a common concern.
- HUD will be made a little cleaner.
- An advanced stats screen gives all the information including stats from items.
- You can opt-in to auto-pickup gold.
- This has been designed as a PC-first experience.
- Console porting has been a challenge. The console game will still think you are using a keyboard and mouse. They wanted console gamers to experience Diablo 2 and also add that controller functionality. On consoles there are some differences like leap and teleport where there’s a set distance to accommodate the controller.
- All LOD content is included.
- Item comparison tooltip using SHIFT.
- Easier to interact with stash with quick keys.
- Five languages.
- Front-end has been redesigned with art to reflect the Act you are in.
- 8-Player Co-op
- PvP still there and works the same way.
- Trading functions the same.
- Improving browsing/finding games for Normal, Nightmare, Hell etc.
- Reducing ladder seasons time to get more engagement from players.
- Diablo 2 Resurrected Leaderboards might be saved for historical reference.
- Due to global server can cross-progression, there will be duplicate names. However, they will be ended with your Battletag.
- Servers such as NA, EU, Asia etc are going thanks to the new global servers systems.
- They did find lots of things from Blizzard North days such as tools. models, and art. It took a long time to sift through it all.
- One of the pieces of art they did not have to remake was Tyreal’s wings, they used the original files.
- Old texture files were also used when they were found.
- Players can hide the HUD to take screenshots.
- The new 3D lighting makes the game feel darker in certain areas.
- They used a lot of old concept art from Blizzard North which they discovered. They described the process as “videogame archeology”.
- Looking back at Diablo 1 also helped in the process. Source files from Diablo 1 were also useful in creating this remaster.
- The move to modern BattleNet will help with security and they hope to stop duping and bots in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
- No online compulsory online play but you will need to authenticate on BNET first.
- Players can link items in chat
- Players can be invited to the game from their friends list. No need for server name and passwords.
- Ability to opt-in to auto-partying when you join a game.
- There will be mod support
- The base patch will be v1.14, the latest Diablo 2 patch,
- Technical Alpha sign-up today.
- Diablo 2 Resurrected costs $39.99.
- Diablo 2 Resurrected releases this year.
Vicarious Visions Diablo 2 Resurrected is looking quite something and it appears to have been a long process to make this possible. Most fans were disheartened when the game wasn’t announced back in 2019 but the wait looks like it was worth it.
The Vicarious Visions team appear to have taken a sensible approach with the development process, not messing with what makes Diablo 2 such a special game, but improving it in certain areas.
Having covered the Diablo franchise for almost 25 years, this is a remaster that I am definitely looking forward to. When you think back to the time between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 when Blizzard gave little attention to the franchise, we kept things alive for the Diablo 2 community with our old site. I certainly would not have thought I would be back covering Diablo 2 in 2021 with Elly. Diablo 2 has a special place in my journey in the videogame industry and probably influenced many of you too.
Diablo 2 Resurrected is coming this year and it’s hard to believe we’ll finally be playing an enhanced version finally.