Diablo 2 Resurrected Review: A helluva nostalgia trip

While lookin’ hella fresh.

There are few games as heavily engrained into the nostalgia of the gamersphere as Diablo 2. You’d be hard pressed to find a PC gamer who hadn’t heard of the game, and you’d be even less likely to find one over the age of 25 who hadn’t at least played it once.

In this way, Diablo 2 Resurrected was somewhat of an inevitability. Remastering a game will always give you some easy sales, but remastering one as revered as Diablo 2? Baby you’re gunna be making bank. Couple this with the shunning of the very-good-actually Diablo 3 by the sweaty nerds of the fan base and the announcement of the upncoming Diablo 4 and you’ve got a recipe for some serious financial success. The question remains though, how does a fresh coat of paint make up for 21 years of game development? In short, no, but let’s find out why.

Masterful remaster

From the moment you first launch the game, it’s eminently clear where the majority of the remastering budget has been poured. The visual updates for this game are frankly stunning. Animations of attacks and spells are smooth and crisp and the model updates of the heroes, monsters and dungeons easily compete with any other ARPG kicking around today. The delightful blend of nostalgia and fidelity introduced in Resurrected is truly impressive to behold.

And the cinematics… oh my god the, cinematics. Blizzard has always – always – been good at telling stories through expertly crafted cutscenes. Look at any Blizzard title, from Overwatch to World of Warcraft, and you’ll see its prowess on display. Diablo 2 was no exception, and the massive jump in visual fidelity that Resurrected brings only adds to the enjoyment. All 27 minutes of the games original cutscenes were fully remade, shot-for-shot, and oh god are they good.

Outside of this gigantic visual upgrade, there’s not a lot on offer here that wasn’t already present when the game launched all those years ago. The list of quality of life changes is short, and realistically rather minor too. Gold is automatically picked up now, and you can now ‘hold to attack’. There are a slew of accessibility options too, which is always a pleasant inclusion. Past that though and you’ve got largely the same Diablo 2 under the hood, for better and for worse.

Hell, revisited

When you first boot it up you’re tasked with choosing from one of seven characters, both those from the base game and the Assassin and Druid from the Lord of Destruction expansion. This was going to be my first ever solo playthrough of Diablo 2, so after much deliberation and indecision – and a hefty amount of googling – I finally landed on trying out the Sorceress.

At this point it had been a good 10 years since I’d dabbled in Diablo 2, and while I still smash out every Diablo 3 season I knew that this would be a different beast entirely. Even so, I wasn’t at all prepared for just how clunky the gameplay would be. Aiming the spells employed by the Sorceress was almost as hell-like as the demon I was fighting, and the extremely limited inventory system was not something I was prepared for. Between a few potions, charms and the necessary scrolls of Town Portal and Identify (both thankfully gone by Diablo 3) your inventory is almost half full, leaving little room for the loot in this very loot focussed game.

Now I’m not sure if you realise this, but 21 years in the land of games is what is known as a very long time. In the intervening period games have become decidedly more mainstream, and along with that have become much, much better designed. I’m not talking about story or visuals here, but instead the way you interact with a game. The smoothness of its systems, the clarity of how to play.

In this way, Resurrected falls victim to its heritage. The game may look great, but it’s clunky and it does a poor job of explaining, well… most things actually. This remaster was a great chance to address these historic quirks, but somewhat understandably Blizzard have instead chosen to play it safe and leave these underlying systems as they are. Some people will say you shouldn’t mess with perfection, but the truth is that Diablo 2 was far from perfect.

Eventually though these grievances bleed away and you just get on with it. Somebody has got to send all these demons back to hell, and I don’t think old Deckard Cain is quite up to the task anymore. By the time I clapped Andariel’s 10ft tall cheeks my build had come online and I was rolling freely through packs of enemies. Sure, looting and gearing can be enjoyable if that’s your thing, but for me the truly great ARPG’s are at their best when you’re cleaving through huge packs of demons with gay abandon.

Nostalgia is king

How then do you even begin to judge a remaster of a game placed on such a lofty pedestal? On one hand the fanboys and die-hards who can remember every Runeword, optimal build and strategy will froth at the mouth over this remaster. The visuals are crisp, the animations top tier and the gameplay is almost exactly the same as it was when Diablo 2 released 21 years ago. Realistically, for them the nostalgia is enough.

But what about for the rest of us? I didn’t get my first taste of Diablo 2 until around 2010, and even by then it was firmly showing its age. The gameplay is clunky and slow – though somewhat improved in Resurrected – and the gameplay loop long and grindy. Fans of other ARPGs may enjoy a jaunt with one of the granddaddies of the genre, though put it up against some of the big guns of today and you’ll quickly see those cracks shining through.

For new players though, this game is about as unfriendly as it gets. If you don’t have friends encouraging you to pick it up and helping you out then you’ll be in for a rough time. This is somewhat an issue of the genre – the majority of the fun stuff is loaded into the end game of ARPGs and getting there can be a serious slog if you don’t know what you’re doing.

This is the hill that Diablo 2 Resurrected dies on. Some small quality of life changes have been worked in, but not too many for fear of angering the rabid fans and not enough to draw in newer players. If you loved this game 21 years ago, thought Diablo 3 was an affront to humanity and have your first playthrough mentally mapped out already then boy-howdy you’re in for a good time.

For the rest of us, those who came to the genre later, play a lot of Path of Exile or *shudder* Diablo 3 or even those who’ve never touched and ARPG before, then your mileage will vary. I won’t shy away from admitting that I wasn’t a fan of Diablo 2 the first time I played it, and my first few hours this time around were rough as well.

Eventually, and with a lot of googling, I found my groove and started to enjoy what Resurrected has to offer. Just make sure you go in prepared for the clunkiness.

The good Stunning visual update. Fantastic cutscenes. Same old Diablo 2.	The bad Clunky gameplay. Lacks some QoL features. Same old Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 Resurrected was reviewed using a promotional code on PC, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.