Diablo 2 Resurrected Wont Replace Original D2

With the upcoming remaster Diablo 2: Resurrected on the horizon, some fans are calling into question Blizzard's history with remasters. Warcraft 3: Reforged released last year and disappointed many fans of the game. Not only was the launch plagued by technical issues, missing original features, and contained minor upgrades visually, but the game replaced the original's client. On release, the original game's multiplayer client was closed and many players were angered by the release of Warcraft 3: Reforged.

With the recent history in mind, it's no surprise Diablo 2 fans are anxious about the final product of Diablo 2: Resurrected. The good news is that a different team is in charge of the Diablo 2: Resurrected release. In fact, the current head of the Diablo franchise, Rod Ferguson, wasn't even at Blizzard at the time Warcraft 3: Reforged released. He recently sat down with PC Gamer to field questions about the direction of the Diablo franchise, and address concerns of worried fans.

According to Ferguson, Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: Resurrected will be separate games, and the release of the remaster won't affect Diablo 2. He also went on to assure fans that Diablo 2 is going to remain untouched. While he did point out that the Warcraft 3 release happened before his time at the company, it was apparent that Blizzard wants to avoid a repeat of those mistakes. It's a very promising sign that the team wants to keep the Diablo 2 experience authentic.

In his interview with PC Gamer, Ferguson said: “One of the things we wanted to make sure was that D2 original stayed D2 original. We were going to make sure that that game stayed there. Keeping the two games separate was a big part of that." Since the original game isn't being altered, the multiplayer functionality will also remain untouched. Diablo 2: Resurrected won't support all of the mods the original game does, but they will still be available on the original game.

Blizzard is looking into options for Diablo 2: Resurrected to support cross-platform play at some point, but players should not expect it at launch. Blizzard has also been looking into making more of its games cross-platform, with rumors about both Overwatch and Overwatch 2 being in line for them to at least look into it. With the power of the newer consoles, more games are considering crossplay between consoles and PCs.

Diablo 2: Resurrection is slated to launch sometime in 2021, and will include the Lords of Destruction DLC package. The two-decade-old title is getting its much-requested re-release, with quite a few updates. Hopefully, the game stays true to the original, as has been promised by the development team.

Blizzard officially unveiled Diablo 2: Resurrected Friday during the BlizzConline keynote presentation. Diablo 2: Resurrected is supposedly a remaster obsessed with offering a faithful recreation of the original game, but that said Blizzard was not averse to making changes to ensure the Diablo 2 experience has all the tools necessary to succeed in 2021. In a recently released BlizzConline panel video, the biggest changes for Diablo 2: Resurrected were detailed.