Diablo 2: Resurrected

Diablo 3 was my first Diablo game.

I have never played Diablo 2.

Let that color the rest of what I will say, if you wish. I won’t take it personally, promise.

My personal anecdote for Diablo 2 is that one night when hanging out with a few friends in high school, two guys mentioned Diablo 2. I knew what the game was but the only Blizzard product I had touched was StarCraft. One of the guys mentioned having a few great items on a USB stick or something that he was given. Maybe someone mentioned being able to buy characters off the internet.

I don’t know… it was 21 years ago.

That statement should also color most anything said about Diablo 2: Resurrected, a remake but also remaster that updates a game released over two decades ago.

Diablo 2 came out in 2000 and I managed to never touch it or its predecessor, even after playing Diablo 3.

And I loved Diablo 3. I enjoyed it during the dark initial hours of not being able to log into the game. I enjoyed it during the jealous times where the friend who had bought me my copy managed to make a bit of money off the auction house. I especially enjoyed it on console where the game had been significantly updated to feel a lot more rewarding.

When playing Diablo 2: Resurrected, I understand what entranced PC players all that time ago. The unquestionably moody and grim tone of the Diablo universe isn’t reflected as prominently in the third game. The amount of character classes and their subtlety in skill usage has little compare. A few years ago, I used to eagerly wait for time to tick away at work so I could hop back into Diablo 3 and run through randomly generated levels in hopes of getting better gear. I can imagine if I had Diablo 2 back when it came out, I would have eagerly waited for time to tick away at high school so I could slowly crawl in power.

But time, often a human construct, is an actual thing. In my Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart review I reflected on how I thought that back in the PlayStation 3 era, graphics and gameplay were as good as they were going to get. Recently I had a conversation with my coworker about this same topic. Every new console generation–and major PC iteration–we watch the pixels constructing Mario become more numerous, detailed, and colorful. We watched Doom go from contained arenas to sprawling, hellish worlds. Somehow our brains, or at least my brain, couldn’t comprehend how anything could be better than what it was experiencing at that moment in time. Star Wars Rogue Leader on GameCube looked just like the movies and couldn’t possibly feel closer to the real thing. How could I predict the newest Battlefront games or even Jedi Fallen Order?

When playing Diablo 2: Resurrected, I wonder what those original PC players would think if the next twenty years of gaming progress was shown to them right then and there.

In recent days I’ve scrolled through YouTube comments on various skill guides, discussions, and commentary on Diablo 2: Resurrected. I’ve seen those curious about Diablo wanting to try it on console. Many who enjoyed the third game have wanted to go back in time. There’s also been a stringent defense force who seems to loathe any negative criticism of Diablo 2‘s core mechanics, especially from those creators who haven’t sunk hundreds or thousands of hours into the game.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is not the most palatable game in 2021. In 2000, maybe it would have been. But times change. Ideas evolve. People grow and interpret their time differently.

With that sentiment in mind, Diablo 2 is revolutionary but Diablo 2: Resurrected… maybe less so.

Being too harsh towards Diablo 2: Resurrected is a double-edged sword. Despite wanting the game to be more like Diablo 3, I can’t justifiably hurl criticism at a game for being something it isn’t, never intended to be, and never will be. And I suppose that is one of lenses this game should be looked at from.

Diablo 2: Resurrected was never meant to be a full reimagining of the classic game. Developers Blizzard and Vicarious Visions have emphasized that Resurrected aimed to be a recreation of Diablo 2 without much being done to change the source code. And for that, they have succeeded gloriously. Though I can’t speak from a place of experience, everything I have seen or read about Resurrected has praised the faithfulness of this game, making it more of a remaster than a remake.

But what are you left with when bringing a 20-year-old game into the modern day?

Many, including myself, will argue that Diablo 2 feels fairly ancient. The fact that one of the few quality of life changes made in Resurrected was to have automatic gold pickup–which can be turned off to closer simulate the original experience–is both fascinating and baffling. I hate the fact that there is a stamina meter in a game where maps can be so large, requiring agonizing stretches of times walking slowly towards an exit or potential treasure. I’m confused as to why attribute points can only be reset once per difficulty or through an endgame crafting item. Does the player inventory need to be this restrictive? Why can’t potions stack? Do I really need scrolls to portal to town to sell off gear or a scroll to identify things?

For me, the plodding pace of Diablo 2 is hard to bear in comparison to Diablo 3. After reaching max level in that game I had a blast burning through worlds watching enemies explode with loot and never feeling like I was running out of space. But that is not a fair comparison. Again, so much time has passed between the two games, of course they are going to change.

Players who really want to make the best out of their character should seek out advice on the internet. Likely every conceivable build has a guide written by someone who played the game within the first few years of launch. After all, Diablo 2 is just as much a defining ARPG as it is a D&D-like game meant to give players agency over their choices. No Necromancer, Sorcerer, or even Barbarian could hold a few dozen pieces of armor and weapons. Diablo 2 leans heavily into the role playing and for that, it’s hard to criticize. But newcomers shouldn’t be punished for choices made early on that turned out to be actual mistakes. It’s entirely possible to spec out a character in such a way that they become worthless for later difficulties. And that’s simply not fun.

Slogging through the game’s mechanics and wishing they were more like their newer sibling, I felt bad. I was trying to make Diablo 2: Resurrected into something it wasn’t. I knew what things were like on the other side, a concession those in 2000 didn’t have. And when I tried to play differently, less obsessed with loot that didn’t matter and focused on truly defining a character, I enjoyed myself more.

Diablo 2 is a rich world full of demonic horror and magical intrigue. Characters in town have multiple bits of dialog based on your progress in a quest. Monsters both familiar and strange invoke panic in groups and elation when slain. The dank and oppressive atmosphere of Diablo 2 actually enriches its punishing mechanical nature. The perfect stew of primal hell beasts and crushingly paltry inventory space make about as much sense as possible. The slow crawl of leveling up to 99, creating a Hardcore character, and hoping for the rarest of drops can be exhilarating in a game like this.

For that, I’m glad little was done to alter the fundamentals in Resurrected. However, I think the best course of action would have been some kind of toggle that would switch the mechanics from “Legacy” to “Updated” or whatever buzzword makes the most sense. On PlayStation 5, I would desperately hover over the Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Energy attributes hoping that a tooltip would pop up explaining what they governed, or at least showing me how those stats would before investing a point into them. Why couldn’t things like that be introduced? Switch off “Legacy” mode and players would be able to ignore stamina, potions could be stacked, inventory space would be expanded, and maybe less overall guesswork would be involved.

When I launched Diablo 2: Resurrected, I didn’t expect for the pace of the game to be so slow and I think some of those concessions I mentioned above would actually help streamline the experience. Understandably, the argument can be made for people to “Git Gud” and I think Diablo 2 is perfectly in line with that meme. Honestly, though, after pushing my Necromancer through dozens of dreary caves and bloody halls, my brain had gotten in tune with the old school style of gaming.

Blizzard and Vicarious Visions weren’t trying to change too much. Legacy players are undoubtedly happy that they can experience Diablo 2 in virtually the same ways as before, going so far to even import old characters on PC copies of the game. But I think a happy medium could have existed to help entice newcomers more, or at least those who couldn’t get Diablo 3 off their mind.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is more remaster than it is remake. Despite the minimal quality of life changes made, it would have taken more significant overhauls like the ones I mentioned for this to be considered a remake. Instead, Resurrected is a perfect example of game preservation, remastering Diablo 2 in a way that ensures it will further stand the test of time and potentially draw in new players with its increased availability.

With a simple button press, players can switch from the gorgeously realized 3D visuals to the original 2D ones. I was taken aback the first few times I triggered this action, just trying to see what a scene or boss looked like in semi-ancient pixels. Diablo 2 was a great looking game for its time, especially considering the amount of detail that was pushed into its smaller resolution. While playing on a large TV does stretch out everything, the remastered models of every environment, hero, creature, spell, and attack make sense and are beautiful renditions of what a player may felt like they saw back in the day. The strangely metal soundtrack swells with clarity, making you feel more entrenched in 2000s rock than ever before.

I can’t imagine the kind of work that went into evolving the game’s graphics to this level of detail but it is certainly worth a look. I’ve seen people lamenting the character models of the playable heroes and I do agree that several of them look weird or just have unappealing faces. Regardless, Resurrected does everything in its power to retain the magic and mood of Diablo 2 but also allows it to translate a bit better into the modern gaze.

Playing the game on PlayStation 5, I couldn’t help but notice how great a traditional mouse and keyboard felt on a controller. Thankfully, spells and actions are given two hotbars that can be selected with a trigger press. Apparently PC players are not given this luxury, which would only further make me frustrated with the original’s limitations. Despite accuracy occasionally being a problem, I couldn’t imagine using any other control scheme to navigate this game. During launch week I suffered from frequent stuttering and rubber-banding with my online character, even when I wasn’t playing with other people. But there’s no way to take an Online character Offline, which may be due to PC players being able to import characters but on console it should not matter. I was especially crushed that Diablo 2: Resurrected didn’t feature couch co-op like Diablo 3.

Diablo 2 is going to feel dated, no matter what. Regardless of what lens it is viewed from, Diablo 2: Resurrected is an exceedingly faithful rendition of a game made over 20 years ago. Classic mechanics are likely going to clash with players who started with Diablo 3 and would rather not be bombarded with systems that use challenge as its own kind of reward. Perhaps the amount of dedication that went into the look of Resurrected could have been put into the mechanics of the game. If new players were provided the option to experience Diablo 2 with the breezier mindset of modern games, it would have greased the wheels into experiencing the game with its original grind. Diablo 2 remains a seminal ARPG and a defining gaming experience. For many Diablo 2: Resurrected is just another excuse to play a favorite. Other players may see it as an ancient relic, barely approachable with its stagnant, unevolved gameplay. For me, it was a harrowing hill to climb, a portal through time, but one I ultimately could not help but regret that I had not gotten to it sooner.