In the case of my sorceress, it meant peppering battlefields with the frozen orb spell and nothing else, which is fun for, like, 25 minutes tops. Every fight boils down to spamming your most powerful attacks ad nauseam. One regrettable side-effect of the ebb and flow of Diablo 2: Resurrected’s loot progression is it highlights how awful the combat itself has aged. When good loot is relatively sparse, finding it is a sweet reward. Yeah, this probably sounds annoying, but that’s how Diablo 2 has always been, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You might even need to repeat this process several hundred times for endgame gear, with each run taking between 10 to 15 minutes. Luckily, it only took a couple of level re-loads for this particular staff to drop. A decent staff for her didn’t even drop until act 2 of the story, and even then, I had to cut through the same boss several times over in hopes of maybe getting it. It took several hours of demon-busting before I found a unique item, even - Blood Crescent, a scimitar. Diablo 2: Resurrected’s pace when it comes to loot distribution is, well, pretty slow compared to Diablo 3, Path of Exile, or any other action RPG title of today. That extra visual flair spicing up environments alleviates some of the monotony that comes with item hunting as well, especially since you’ll revisit locations often while out hunting for gear. I found myself stopping to take sights in on more than one occasion, and it’s incredible how Vicarious Visions have not kept Diablo 2’s bleak tone without over embellishing into something unfamiliar. Sure, barreling through dilapidated castles or cobwebbed spider-pits was always fun since procedural generation kept your surroundings fresh, but the stunning new graphics often make exploration even better. From decaying forests outside the Rogue Citadel to maggot-encrusted sewers below the city-state of Lut Gholein, Resurrected’s 3D graphical veneer brings an astonishingly haunting baroque vibe that wasn’t possible with Diablo 2’s old 2D sprites. Even the realistic human eye movements and immaculately detailed demon models of Resurrected’s beautiful CGI cutscenes won’t make you forget Diablo 2’s story has aged like cheese on concrete in 80-degree weather.Įye-roll-inducing though Diablo 2: Resurrected’s story might be, at least its quests motivate you to get out and explore Sanctuary’s wonderfully horrific landscapes. Sure, it’s a game from two decades ago, but given how frequently you’ll listen to townsfolk prattle on about lore, the story clearly wasn’t just an afterthought. Characters do little but dispense expository or corny dialogue, and you’ll see its trite “twists” coming a mile away. That, sadly, is about the extent of Diablo 2’s plot - following some guy.
Demons are once again ravaging Sanctuary, and it’s up to you to cut them down by the thousands in search of the culprit behind this burning terror. Set mere weeks after the original game, Diablo 2 tells the tale of a mysterious wanderer leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake.
Resurrected is Diablo 2 precisely as you remember it, for better and for worse. However, a lackluster story and dull combat were reminders that not everything about this medieval gothic fantasy works these days. After 18 hours of adventuring throughout the world of Sanctuary in this remaster, I came to adore Diablo 2: Resurrected’s graphical overhaul, rewarding loot progression, and helpful quality of life improvements. Now, almost twenty years later, developer Vicarious Visions wants Diablo 2: Resurrected to hook me and everyone else that grew up with it all over again. Tack on a few thousand hours onto this narration, and you’d know the story of how Blizzard North’s seminal action RPG damn near made me flunk out of the 7th grade. It didn’t matter what demonic horrors awaited me in those dark crypts, there was treasure sprinkled throughout every blood-caked corridor, and I was going to claim it as my own come hell or high water. Whenever Diablo 2 comes up, I can’t help but let early 2000s nostalgia overtake me - back when I’d stay up way too late gleefully monster-slaying on school nights. While Diablo 2: Resurrected is a Blizzard release, the developers of this remaster (Vicarious Visions) are not implicated in the allegations. We’d like to note Activision Blizzard is currently facing multiple lawsuits over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.
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