At the turn of the millennium,
game developer Blizzard Entertainment was on a roll. Their titles, covering
real-time strategy in “Warcraft” and “Starcraft,” and hack-and-slash
roleplaying in “Diablo,” have been hits on PC. “Diablo II,” their sequel to the
1997 original, was released in 2000 to even greater success. Taking everything
that made its predecessor great and improving on them, “Diablo II” and its
expansion “Lord of Destruction” became a definitive of early 2000s gaming.
While a third sequel was released in 2012 and a fourth in development, the
second installment remains fondly remembered. When Blizzard announced a re-master
of “Diablo II,” fans were intrigued, particularly with one decades-spanning
feature.
PC Gamer tells us that Blizzard Entertainment’s planned re-master “Diablo
II: Resurrected” is going the extra mile in sheer faithfulness to its original
form from 2000. How faithful? Imagine you played the original “Diablo II” on
PC, several times even. All those saved games, particularly of replays, will
likely have high-level player characters with a mint’s worth of money and an
armory of high-quality or unique equipment options. If you somehow saved your
original “Diablo II” game/character files, they can be carried over to “Diablo
II: Resurrected.” That is a gap potentially 20 years long.
“Resurrected” producer Matthew
Cederquist excitedly revealed this quirk on a roundtable with IGN Middle East, along with game
designer Andrew Abrahamian. The fact that two-decade old “Diablo II” saves will
still work on the re-mastered edition is only further proof that the Blizzard
team kept the spirit of the original game intact even with the fresh CG
overlays. Fans were excited enough that they could toggle between current-gen
3D character models of “Resurrected” and the grainy 2D sprites of the classic
midgame. But being able to just pick up from where one left off so many years
ago is mind-blowing.
“Diablo II: Resurrected” is coming soon to
both PC and consoles, with current-gen perks such as higher resolutions
(4320p/8K on PC, 4K/60fps on consoles) and in-game achievements for console
versions. No release date is confirmed. The original “Diablo II” however
remains as is on the Legacy BattleNet while its re-master is on the present-day
BattleNet.
Image courtesy of Game Rant
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