Warcraft players are still fuming over the lazy reinterpretation of the 2002 classic, Reign of Chaos, but Activision-Blizzard isn’t done testing the patience of its loyal fanbase. During yesterday’s Q4 2019 earnings call, CEO Bobby Kotick confirmed that more remastered titles were on the way despite Reforged’s troubled reception.
“…our business units will continue to tap into our portfolio of beloved IP to bring several remastered and re-imagined experiences to our players in 2020, which we will announce closer to launch.”
Blizzard fans have already begun freaking out over what classic will be tainted next, but the casualty seems pretty obvious. There’s only one quintessential property that hasn’t entered remake territory yet, and that’s Diablo.
A revised version of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction has actually long been rumored. Even David Brevik – co-founder of Blizzard North and Diablo’s creator – spoke about the possibility back in 2018, but ironically, he alluded to what fans have been fearing: another disastrous remake.
Brevik had warned that it’d be “extremely difficult” to bring Diablo II to modern PCs because of how it was designed. Updating the resolution and aspect ratio from 800 x 600 (4:3) to 4K (16:9/16:10) alone could be nightmarish.
“A lot of the ways that the AI and stuff activates is from off-screen … if they were going to keep the same radius of awareness, you would get a whole bunch of things on the edge of the screen, just kind of like, you know, getting ready to do something here! But if you don’t, then everything is coming from different angles, and different speeds, and doing different things, than you’re used to and the way it’s run.”
StarCraft: Remastered managed to turn out pretty well, so maybe we should give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. But don’t be surprised if Diablo II: Remastered replaces the legacy client as Reforged did, wiping out much of the original’s features.