Diablo II remaster finally announced, coming this year
Hell yeah
After years of rumours and wishes, Blizzard have announced a remaster of the wonderful Diablo II is coming this year. Just as I was heaping scorn on a BlizzCon fuelled primarily by nostalgia, they announced Diablo II: Resurrected and tbh I'm flipping my tits over here. Hell yeah. They've redone it with new 3D art and other technical polish, and it'll support cross-platform progression between PC and consoles. See the new old look in the trailer below.
I dig it. Not as gritty or grotty as the original Diablo II (which has some pumped-up constrast alright) but I like it. And it'll have the option to switch to the old look with the press of a key, like in the StarCraft remaster, if you want. Blizzard say they've outright recreated the cinematics too. Plus they've redesigned bits of the UI. And the expansion's included, obs.
Frankly all that's secondary to the real news: an extra 52 stash slots plus oh my god a new stash shared with all characters on the same Battle.net account. I can't even tell you how much loot I lost over the years to mishaps while muling loot between wizards.
See the Diablo II website for old/new comparisons and to sign up for the technical alpha test.
Diablo II: Resurrected is coming to Battle.net later this year, priced at £35. It'll also be on Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. Vicarious Visions, who did the recent remasters of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Crash Bandicoot, are chipping in.
Alice Bee said last year that if pushed, she'd recommend D3 over D2 - but D2 was the best game. Hopefully a fresh coat of paint can bring the joys of clicking to more people, and we don't have a repeat of the Warcraft 3 remaster exposing just how old it feels.