Blizzard has announced that, after 20 years since its initial launch, the expansion of Diablo 2 and The Lord of Destruction will be remastered and delivered at up to 4K / 144Hz.
The remaster is called Diablo 2 Resurrected (Diablo II: Resurrected if you want to follow the Blizzard naming convention) and will be available on both PCs and – for the first time – on Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Blizzard President J. Allen Brack also said the game will offer cross-progression, allowing you to load the character’s progression between the PC and console versions.
It’s still a mystery which engine the game was running on, as Brack didn’t say anything specifically, but it looks like he’s using the same system as Diablo 3, as seen by some of the particle effects and ambient lighting in the trailer.
Stealing the memory path
The game was announced during the opening speech on Friday at Blizzcon 2021, and while we didn’t get much details about the game, Brack emphasized the fact that Blizzard was doing everything possible to maintain the feel of the original games, but will add graphics updates and Dolby 7.1 surround sound.
That said, however, players wishing to travel the memory path can switch between a classic mode that uses the sprite-based textures from the original games.
So far we don’t have an exact release date other than 2021, but Blizzard says players can go to the Diablo 2 Resurrected website to sign up and have a chance to participate in the upcoming public tests of the PC alpha.