Speculation regarding the potential development of a remastered version of Diablo 2 continues to be a topic of discourse within the Blizzard fandom. No announcement has been forthcoming, as Blizzard appears to be fully focused on Diablo 4 for the time being. Still, with Diablo 4 seemingly quite way away from launch, fans are still curious about the possibility of Diablo 2 perhaps being released first. They’re even going so far as asking one of the original Diablo 2 creators their thoughts.
David Brevik was the project and design lead for Diablo 2, as well as the lead programmer for the original Diablo. During a stream run by Brevik’s wife, who goes by TheJungleQueen on Twitch, a fan asked about the possibility of a Diablo 2 remaster. Now, Brevik hasn’t worked for Blizzard in over 15 years, so he doesn’t have any official knowledge of the project, but nevertheless, Brevik felt confident saying that it was a definite possibility, but there’s a catch.
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Brevik refers to a disaster he first discussed in 2019 that struck the Diablo 2 developers as the project was being finished. The project’s backup storage became corrupted, losing a large amount of Diablo 2‘s source code and original assets. The project was salvaged by piecing together bits of the game kept on developers’ individual computers, but so much was lost in the process. Brevik said at the time, “good luck trying to figure out what the hell we did.”
Because of that, Brevik now says, while Blizzard absolutely could be working on a new Diablo 2 game, it would have to be something completely new. “Will it be the same game? Doubtful,” are Brevik’s exact words. Without the original source code or assets, Blizzard would have to recreate the game from the ground up, assumedly. And that’s without any of the original Diablo 2 programmers left at the company, too.
Blizzard could still remake Diablo 2. It would have to recreate all of the game’s assets, which it’d largely want to do for a modernized remake anyway. But it would also have to rediscover all of the game’s balance, its loot drop systems, and so on. It’s difficult to imagine any such game even feeling similar to Diablo 2. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be great, but it’d likely mean it’d be great in a different way.
For those unfamiliar, there have been several rumors regarding a Diablo 2: Resurrected game being in development at Vicarious Visions in partnership with Blizzard. The rumors indicated the game will be announced in 2020. There’s no substantial evidence of this announcement as of yet, however.
Diablo 2 is available now on PC.
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