Old Eyes & New Souls: Welcoming The Diablo 2 Remaster

For a time, a very long time, the simple sounds and glow of the screen kept me curious, excited and afraid. Dark notes dancing down into my ears, brushing past my mind. Diablo 2 the screen would read, adorned with the cold colour palette and gothic styling I’d become so familiar with. I knew this threat, I knew the world I was a part of. A party of people huddled around a fire, each representing a unique element. The Barbarian, Paladin, Necromancer all standing out. Amazon, Sorceress, Druid and Assassin. All stood awaiting my choice.

Fondly looking upon the times I had with Diablo 2 with a sense of nostalgia and appreciation beyond belief is commonplace for me. Where Diablo 1 had fundamentally changed my views on video games and what they could be, Diablo 2 took it a step further. I grew to understand character building, stats, how to synergize skills and gear. All of these elements helped me learn skills I struggled to grasp in real life. Additionally, the jump from peer-to-peer to a fully fleshed out Battle.Net introduced me to a whole new depth of communities and their impact on the playing experience. 

A childhood preserved

I reflect more and more the older I get. While the hairs are greyer, the knee weaker, the lust for Diablo 2 never subsided. A game that did so much. A game that fails to get the attention it deserves in the modern age. A diverse cast of characters ranging in gender and creed. Dungeons so fiendishly crafted they never become a chore. A community that still stands strong after 20 years. Diablo 2 is a classic, still running wonderfully on modern systems and easy to obtain. Yet here we are, with a remaster on the horizon.

Taking away all the noise around modern-day Blizzard, Diablo 2 Resurrected is a needless, yet useful remaster. My heart says ‘spit out hot takes’ but that same hunk of muscle also beats another drum. A large portion of modern Diablo fans started their experience with the third entry into the series. I’m sure they’ve YouTube the past entries and looked upon it with a vague level of novelty. Resurrected is that hand reaching out, covered in HD textures and welcoming warmth. No longer a peek between the crack in the door, Diablo 2’s rebirth is a wide-open entry for a whole new generation, across PC and console. This, as a diehard Diablo 2 fan, is exciting.

A diverse cast, all with their place…even the ginger Druid

Diablo 3’s process-driven nature is more sterile than it is seductive, chasing nothing more than slightly improved items set within a limited bracket. There’s no real input from the player beyond selecting their favoured skills and minor adjustments to them. A disconnect sets in between truly building a character, selecting their skill tree and then gearing for that in mind. It’s all a modern approach of being ‘streamline’ and ‘accessible’. Speaking of streamline, Diablo 3’s janky narrative pales in comparison to that of its darker siblings. Gone are the tales of failure in victory and birthing of evil through the desires of man, steeped in the lore of the lands. Diablo 3’s almost ‘Netflix adaptation’ was flimsy, leaving little to feast on between the hammering of the left click.

These flaws, the cracks in the painting, that Diablo 3 features are the exact reason why I welcome a Diablo 2 remaster. An introduction to how things ‘used’ to be, not exclusively just how Diablo 2 was. Creating this bridge for new people to cross opens up Diablo 2 Resurrected’s ability to become a gateway game. Allowing people to broaden their horizons and tastes beyond the scope of their modern game consumption. Additionally, they can experience everything that made Diablo great. It’s a win-win situation for the players both new and old. Blizzard has already promised to leave Diablo 2’s original version alone instead of baking it into the remaster like they have previously done with Warcraft 3 and Reforged.  

Blizzard’s missteps aside, this could be a great step forward in allowing younger generations and those from different hardware preferences to explore an entire period unknown to them. We’ve seen similar things happen with the ‘Boomer shooter’ scene, old-school influenced RPG titles like Wasteland 3, Pillars of Eternity. Preservation is important, both in terms of preserving games themselves but also in their cultural place. If it takes overlooking one or two corporate power-plays to help ensure people are exposed to a better, deeper, world of video games then so be it. 

My love, my memories, my Diablo 2 are still going to be there. They won’t be altered or dented. Hopefully, maybe, a whole new generation of people can form their own memories with the game I hold so dear…who knows, they may even try the original. But for that to happen, they’d have to stay awhile and listen.