Something that more seasoned fans of Diablo have been hoping for may be dead. There are rumors spreading online that the Diablo 2 Remaster people have been wondering about has been cancelled. A lot of people were expecting an announcement even last year about the prospect of a full Diablo 2 Remaster, but nothing of the sort has come yet.
Current speculation is that the project had been in the early stages for a while, but has since been dropped. The running theory is that Blizzard is focusing on Diablo 4 and using that game to bring older fans back into the fold. The idea does carry some weight when considered in the abstract, judging from what we’ve seen of Diablo 4. The upcoming RPG offers a much darker tone and setting than Diablo 3, harkening back to the days of the early franchise. And judging from the class gameplay we’ve seen so far, this assumption feels pretty spot on.
The announcement didn’t happen at BlizzCon 2019 either. Instead various in-progress games were teased, but are still a fair bit away from release. One of those was a fully-fledged sequel. Diablo 4 will be bringing back the class structure of the previous games, with fan-favorites like the Barbarian, Sorceress and more making a full comeback into the RPG franchise. But it wouldn’t be a sequel without completely revamped combat styles and other changes that improve upon the original ideas. New enemies will bring different challenges and new skills will give new tools to overcome said challenges. That means gamers are going to have to build on what they already know and adapt to a new climate.
According to speculation from Reddit, “Diablo II Remake/Remaster was planned, but they later realized that it would be much better to give the franchise a complete reset and put majority of the fans requests into 1 giant package.”
This all means that Blizzard is likely looking to deliver the best possible Diablo experience, but we’re going to have to wait a while to see how it all plays out.
