Diablo II Resurrected
BlizzConline 2021 has come and gone. It was full of great content and updates for quite a few Blizzard franchises. Thankfully this year was not full of “do you guys not have phones” moments. Considering a few factors, it’s timing and delivery was perfect. The obvious weights we are carrying right now are the ongoing pandemic and the power outage. Specifically to me, the Texas power debacle. Coming off of a year of lockdown and then a week of no power and water, we needed something positive. Well, I shouldn’t speak for everyone. I needed something positive.
Sundays are productive days for me. I goof off all Saturday and then Sunday is my day to get busy. Mostly it’s content for j76, but it could be anything really. I spent this Sunday with a little smile on my face, a positive outlook, and yet a longing to Return To Hell in 2021. Wait, what? Not that hell. I’m being silly, return to the hell of Diablo II.
The overwhelming feeling I have is that the future of the Diablo franchise is bright. Let’s forget about any Activision Blizzard drama for a moment. Let’s also ignore Immortal cause mobile games are not my thing. Let’s focus on just Diablo on PC. And of course now we have Diablo on consoles, but Diablo is a PC game to me. I played Diablo I, II, and III on PC so Diablo is PC. However, if I’m being honest, I will still pick up new games on consoles. So here it is Sunday night and I’m riding on the feeling that something good is coming.
After months of speculation, leaks, and rumors, we finally have an official announcement that Diablo II is being remastered.
I wasn’t even expecting it. Really I had written it off as not happening. Then it was there. Of course there was initial excitement but then there was that “what if it sucks?” feeling. Warcraft 3 anyone? Thankfully, BlizzConline dropped the right content with all the right sentiments and I’m 100% positive. The teams at Blizzard and Vicarious Visions are saying, doing, and showing all the right things.
I have spent a bit of time in the past couple years looking at and trying mods like MedianXL and Project Diablo 2 and PlugY. They were all good in some ways but not what I wanted. My wish list was vanilla Diablo II with a bigger stash and better graphics. Maybe some other quality of life improvements, but nothing to lose the feel of the game I loved. I didn’t want anything more or less than that. None of the additional content from the bigger mods, but better graphics resolution than just using PlugY.
So here we are on Feb 21st and I’m warm and fuzzy with the knowledge that sometime this year I will be getting exactly what I asked for. Now we just need that pesky release date. Soon…
Q and A hosted by MrLlamaSC. Part of the official BlizzConline presentation.
Additional Q and A from MrLlamaSC’s own channel.
Rhykker’s reaction and thoughts from his channel.