A glimpse of the past, and a hope for the futureĪnd yet, more than anything, playing Diablo 2: Resurrected has made me all the more desperate to get my hands on Diablo 4. It’s like climbing into a comfy bed that’s just had fresh sheets put on it – it’ll be hard to go back to the legacy version of Diablo 2 after this, preserving everything that was great about the original, while touching up some pain points that have endured over the years. Despite being a technical alpha, it’s stable to play, with no major bugs, and all the elements that are available to try right now work just fine.

I’ve played a nice chunk of the first act of Diablo 2: Resurrected, and it’s been a blast so far.

Like a good book brought to life on the screen, the space for imagination between those crude pixels of the original game might not quite match up with the fully-realized characters of Resurrected. In general, this is not an attempt at a faithful recreation of D2, it is Grim Dawn and D2 roled into one (+ some additions), with D2 looks and sounds.It’s perhaps a bit more realistic, which could be jarring for veteran players. You may not notice the difference at first, but with Normal+ you get some pretty heavy difficulty spikes with certain champion monsters. Just don't start with Normal+ if you are easily frustrated and tend towards rage-quiting. Don't worry though, you can change difficulty any time. Designed for players creating their second char I presume, rather than new players that are familar with the genre. Most Grim Dawn veterans will probably tend to choose Normal+ (the, at first glance, 'equivalent' to Veteran mode from Grim Dawn). It's fun, but especially the balancing and difficulty may not be what you expect at first. Yet, the action is not quite D2, but it is not quite Grim Dawn either. The classes are there (in addition to the vanilla Grim Dawn classes, not sure how well they mesh). The visuals and audio are well done, close to to the original D2. In case anyone else is interested in the mod: I'm trying it right now, although I am not too far into the game yet.

Diablo 2 remake fan made