Diablo II: Resurrected review

Our Verdict

Diablo 2: Resurrected recreates the best parts of the original game with a fresh glaze of paint. Nevertheless, the core gameplay design feels a chip dated.

For

• Original game holds upward well
• Excellent overhaul to graphics and music
• Improved online play

Against

• Few quality-of-life improvements
• Dated blueprint decisions
• No concessions for newcomers

Tom's Guide Verdict

Diablo Ii: Resurrected recreates the best parts of the original game with a fresh coat of paint. However, the core gameplay design feels a scrap dated.

Pros

• +

  Original game holds up well

• +

  Fantabulous overhaul to graphics and music

• +

  Improved online play

Cons

• -

  Few quality-of-life improvements

• -

  Dated pattern decisions

• -

  No concessions for newcomers

Diablo II: Resurrected: Specs

Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Price: $40
Release Date: September 23, 2021
Genre: Activity/RPG

Diablo II: Resurrected accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. That's great news for hardcore Diablo Ii fans, who have been playing the game nonstop for 21 years, and struggle to keep it afloat on modern hardware. Information technology'southward also potentially less nifty news for newcomers to the game, who may scratch their heads at some of its cumbersome mechanics and dense lore.

Truthfully, if you've played Diablo Two sometime between its 2000 release date and now, you probably don't need a full review to determine whether you should buy Diablo Ii: Resurrected. Instead, ask yourself: Practice I want to replay Diablo II? Do I intendance nearly having modern graphics and online features? Practise I want to pay $40 for the privilege? If so, purchase the game; if not, there's nothing new here to entice you back.

For gamers who have never played Diablo 2 before, the calculus is a fiddling more hard. Diablo II is a classic game in every sense of the word, with rewarding core gameplay, an interesting story and a structure that basically every hack-and-slash PC RPG has aped since 2000. On the other hand, in the intervening years, games similar Diablo III, Path of Exile and Torchlight accept demonstrated that the genre is ripe for a thousand piffling fixes, which Diablo II: Resurrected doesn't adopt.

(Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

Diablo Ii: Resurrected is, no doubt, exactly what a sizable and dedicated contingent of fans wanted. At the same time, it's hard to shake the feeling that information technology could take been a picayune more than. Read on for our full Diablo 2: Resurrected review.

Diablo II: Resurrected review: Gameplay

Information technology'south fair to say that Diablo Ii is the template for the mod hack-and-slash RPG, and Diablo Two: Resurrected recreates that game with remarkable fidelity. Y'all choose an adventurer from one of seven classes. There's something here for every taste, from the durable Barbarian, to the spell-slinging Sorceress, to the shapeshifting Druid. Every class has something to offer, whether information technology'due south the Amazon's proficiency with ranged weapons, or the Paladin's auras, which can give a multiplayer party a semi-permanent stat heave.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

Once yous've selected your class, you lot hop into the varied world of Sanctuary, where you travel across four distinct environments — a grassland, a desert, a jungle and a heavenly otherworld — in pursuit of the demon lord Diablo. Forth the way, yous'll slay hordes upon hordes of lesser demons, and pick upwards an armory'due south worth of randomized loot, which ranges from "a consummate waste product of infinite" to "absolutely indispensable."

Gainsay in Diablo 2: Resurrected is amazingly straightforward. You use left-click for a basic attack, and right-click for whichever secondary attack yous want to specialize in. Every weapon type, from axes to short swords to katar dial-daggers, offers a slightly different basic set on, and every grapheme class has a variety of special attacks to larn and master. Special attacks bleed mana; basic attacks don't.

(Paradigm credit: Tom'due south Guide)

As such, the vast majority of Diablo 2: Resurrected is clicking on enemies as quickly as humanly possible, occasionally retreating to carouse a health or mana potion. Managing huge crowds of enemies is an interesting claiming, since each class has a somewhat different approach to it. A Necromancer might hang back and permit scads of skeletons do his dirty work, while an Assassinator might disable powerful foes with martial arts while picking off weaker ones with traps. Combat is always elementary, but not always piece of cake, cheers to a huge variety of procedurally generated enemies and levels.

Gathering loot is the other big role of the equation. This has been one of Diablo's biggest draws ever since the offset game. Defeating enemies feels rewarding, since you never know what they might drop, whether it's a lifesaving potion, or a powerful piece of unique equipment. Granted, most of the equipment you lot detect is not all that useful — and this is where Diablo II starts to show its age.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Your inventory in this game is tiny, and nothing stacks, not fifty-fifty potions. As such, later on 15 minutes or so of adventuring, your inventory volition be packed to the brim, fifty-fifty if yous're fairly judicious well-nigh what you want to keep. You'll too have to dive in and move items around manually to max out your space, since the game'due south car-sort options are limited. Micromanaging your inventory and making frequent trips back to town was tedious when Diablo 2 debuted. At present that games like Diablo III and Torchlight have streamlined a lot of these inconveniences, it's odd that Diablo Ii wouldn't at least take an option to follow arrange.

It'southward even odder when you consider that Diablo II: Resurrected does, indeed, accept a few quality-of-life improvements. You can now pick upwardly gold automatically, see a total list of gear bonuses, respec loftier-level characters and share an inventory stash across all of your characters. (Transferring items was a huge hurting in the base game.) Diablo II: Resurrected gives you lot crystal-clear options for online and offline play, including whether you lot want to play with the Lord of Destruction expansion content, whether yous want a hardcore (perma-expiry) character, or whether yous want other players to jump into your game.

(Prototype credit: Tom'south Guide)

Better inventory management would have been a welcome modify. So would a more refined mini-map, and recommendations for how to manage the game's extensive skill tree. Diablo III was very clear virtually which skills would benefit your graphic symbol's playstyle; Diablo II relies on trial and error — or on online optimization guides, for which newcomers won't have any context.

Diablo 2: Resurrected review: Story

In fact, having played through the whole Diablo serial (including the highly questionable Hellfire expansion), I tin can't help merely wonder what first-timers would make of Diablo II: Resurrected. While the gameplay isn't that complicated to start, there'due south no tutorial — and this time around, information technology'south not as though yous'll see an teaching transmission before you lot insert the game into your CD tray.

(Prototype credit: Tom's Guide)

This likewise ways that new players will accept precisely zero context for the long, expository cutscene that plays before the game fifty-fifty starts. Diablo Ii tells the story of a traveler named Marius, who accompanies a warrior chosen the Nighttime Wanderer into the Eastern realms of Sanctuary. The Nighttime Wanderer seems to command the power of Diablo, the Lord of Terror, and seeks to wage war against a heavenly deity called Tyrael. Your character pursues Marius, in the hopes of eventually stopping Diablo.

It's a good story, at least once you figure out everyone'southward identity and motivation. Simply it's also a convoluted story, which relies heavily on the events of the outset Diablo game. You lot demand to know the Dark Wanderer'south identity, what happened to the boondocks of Tristram, why information technology's important to save the scholar Deckard Cain and fifty-fifty how Diablo himself factors into the ongoing war against Heaven and Hell. Since Blizzard hasn't remastered the start Diablo game, the least information technology could have washed was give a epitomize.

Diablo 2: Resurrected review: Visuals and sound

One area where Diablo Ii: Resurrected absolutely excels is in its music and sound. Blizzard has given the game a full 3D overhaul, with high-res models and textures, 4K resolution and fast frame rates. Quondam-school fans need non worry, though, every bit you can toggle between the new and old graphics instantaneously, with a single button. I didn't realize merely how much of a difference the new graphics fabricated until I saw the two side-by-side.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

The audio design, too, is a thing of beauty, with crystal-articulate music that's still memorable after all these years, and redesigned sound effects. The voice acting is yet strong, with fifty-fifty bit characters like Charsi the blacksmith or Gheed the trader showing a lot of personality.

Diablo 2: Resurrected review: Verdict

I suspect that Blizzard had a very item audience in mind when it decided to remaster Diablo II. That audience has been playing the game on and off since 2000, and are convinced that it is the apotheosis of action/RPGs. They may very well want to keep playing it for another 21 years, and they want a organisation that looks and runs well on modern systems to practise so. This audience tin can residual easy. Diablo 2: Resurrected is precisely what they want.

For everyone else — fifty-fifty longtime series fans like myself — my recommendation is more than tentative. Diablo II is a nifty game. Diablo Two: Resurrected is a pretty remaster. Just information technology's a pretty remaster of a game you may have already played to decease, with only a few mild upgrades. While Diablo II's strengths have e'er overshadowed its problems, its problems are still very much present here. In that location's as well the question of whether it'southward a skillful idea to support Blizzard right at present at all, considering the company's alleged mistreatment of women and minorities.

In whatsoever instance, Diablo IV is in the works, and it might be worth revisiting Diablo II earlier so, if only to refresh yourself on the story. Diablo Two: Resurrected isn't exactly a heavenly gaming experience, only it's hardly a hellish one, either.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. Subsequently hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/diablo-ii-resurrected

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