More than 2 decades after its initial release, Blizzard has finally released Diablo II: Resurrected into the wild. Players will once again hack and slash their way through a timeless tale and face the Prime Evils: Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal.
We’ve been spending plenty of quality time with the game since launch and have compiled a small handful of things that will see us coming back for more in the months ahead.
- There are plenty of user interface/quality of life improvements
Perhaps Diablo II: Resurrected’s biggest achievement is that it looks and feels just as you remember it. Forget the pangs of nostalgia leading to bitter disappointment, because the development team have implemented a seemingly goldilocks-level of changes for this stunning remaster. The characters you know and love remain as they always did, they just look a lot nicer, and move a lot smoother.
Same goes for the all the environments you must fight your way through over the course of the Diablo II’s four acts. In fact, there are so many neat changes on offer that the ones deemed most important will likely vary from player to player.
“There’s some really big ones,” Resurrected’s Lead Producer Chris Leana replies when asked what his favourite improvements are. “Things like shared stash is huge for someone who has played Diablo for a long time. I really like the auto-gold pickup, and just bringing the whole thing to console… And that also comes with it cross progression as well, so you can play on your Switch, then pick the same character up on a PC later.”
Which perfectly brings us to the next point…
- Playing on controller feels like a natural fit
It might be sacrilegious in the eyes of the Diablo faithful, but playing Resurrected with a controller is perhaps the best way to experience it. Yes you can still click to your heart’s content should that be your ultimate desire, but we can’t look back after utilising the sheer flexibility of the PS5’s DualSense.
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Having the analogue stick for seamless, adaptive movement, and the ability to assign skills to various buttons just makes the whole experience feel more natural and intuitive. It allows for more instinctual actions in the heat of battle that ultimately led to greater success and a whole lot less dying.
If you’re sceptical, you really deserve to give it a crack.
Watch the Cinematic Trailer
- The revamped ladder will heat up global competition
For long-time fans of Diablo II, facing off against the Prime Evils is just the beginning. Where much of the appeal lies is climbing the game’s ladder, where players from around the world work to show off their playstyle, optimise their gear and builds and increase their rank to show they’re top dog. It’s an appealing proposition that will see you coming back for more long after you wrap the main story, and Resurrected tinkers with the system just a smidge so that more people can get in on the action.
According to Lena, it’s all about the length of each ‘season’. “For the original Diablo II that was six months long,” he states when explaining the reason behind the changes. “We definitely wanted to make that much shorter, so there’s more of that competition and it’s restarting more often… Just really encouraging people to kind of have that experience more often.”
- The new cinematics look amazing
While the team behind Resurrected has worked incredibly hard to ensure that the core DNA of Diablo II has remained intact, especially for visuals, the original game’s cinematics were replaced with stunning shot-for-shot remakes that are absolutely worthy of the silver screen.
Character models are richly detailed, locations better realised, and the level of lighting really help create a much moodier atmosphere that strengthen the exceptional voice acting of the original. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t watch them more than once. Truly breathtaking.
Watch the remastered cinematic for Diablo II: Resurrected‘s Act I
- It’s the best way to play Diablo II
There’s no question that Diablo II has more than earned its place in video game history. Beloved for over 20 years, its legacy continues to inspire many action RPG titles to this day. Diablo II: Resurrected helps usher that rich legacy into a new era by proving brand new reasons for long-time fans to keep grinding away, while also luring newcomers towards the franchise.
Resurrected looks great, plays great and is the most accessible it’s ever been. That’s a big win in our books.
