So, last year's BlizzCon finally happened.
Or perhaps I should say that BlizzcOnline happened, since that was the awkward portmanteau du jour. After a solid year of virtual CES, E3, Game Awards, and Directs (or equivalents) by AMD, NVidia, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, I was almost convinced that events like this were an irrelevant thing of the past, but BlizzcOnline may changed my mind. Changing press events into virtual presentations is a definite improvement, but trying to stage a fan event, but without the fans, felt really, really weird.
Blizzard didn't have all that much to announce, either, which was super not helpful in building hype. They spent some time celebrating their 30-year anniversary, of course, which was fine, but after that, it was just normal content releases for HearthStone and World of WarCraft, a collection of their very oldest games that I'd never played and have no nostalgia about, and relatively modest hints about the two actual sequels (Diablo IV and Overwatch 2) that are in the works.
Not that any of it was bad, exactly, but none of it really needed to be announced at an event of this scale. The over effect was just really, really... meh.
RIP StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm, by the way, players of which got absolutely nothing. Not a surprise, I guess, since both of these games were maintained by Blizzard's Team 1, which was broken up after the debacle of WarCraft: Reforged, but still... ouch.
Press F to pay your respects.
Which left Diablo as the main event of the whole show. And, yes, they did waste time on Diablo: Immortal, which looks pretty good for a mobile version of Diablo III, and which nobody cares about. The Rogue class they're adding to Diablo IV looks... fine, I guess, but a lot will depend on what the rest of the game is like; one class does not a game make, and Diablo III's issues weren't specifically related to the concepts behind the design of the game's classes.
And then, there was Diablo II: Resurrected.
It's taken me most of a week to figure out what I think, or how I feel, about the fact that Blizzard has finally announced that they're working something as obvious as a high-def remaster of one of their best-selling games ever. The surprise here isn't so much that it's happening, as that it's taken them so long to make it happen.
And the quality of the product itself looks pretty solid; the graphics are mostly fine (although some of the player character models look like they've lived hard for every single one of the 20 years since D2 was originally released), the gameplay is identical to Diablo II (the original game will literally be running underneath the new graphics overlay), and what quality of life changes they are making appear to be mostly lifted from popular mods like Median XL -- in other words, QoL changes that players were modding into the game, anyway.
D2:R will even have an offline mode; and, yes, it will support mods, so it's possible that popular mods like Median XL and Path of Diablo could find their way into the Resurrected game, too. As far as I can tell, the only minor downside is the price point; $50 USD ($55 CAD) feels a little high for a 21-year-old game, and definitely above-average for remasters of PC games. It is in line with remasters of console games like Dark Souls, though, and since D2:R will be released on consoles, as well, I suppose console pricing was always going to be baked into the product.
And the fact that Diablo II will be available to play, and run well, on modern hardware, is a good thing. You can even turn off the updated graphics, and play the game in its original form, meaning that players who've never experienced the original game can now learn where all the item drop mechanics in their looter shooters originated... and why so many developers were so keen on adding D2's addictive core gameplay loop to their own genres of game.
So...it's all good, right? I mean, there's nothing bad about this, is there? Then why do I feel so ambivalent about it all? I used to love this game, and yet, I found myself reacting to its annoucement with a big, gallic shrug.
I've been wrestling with this all week, and I think I finally have the answer. And, yes, the answer really is Diablo III. Yes, again.
I've written other posts on this blog about D3's disastrous launch, so I won't rehash every detail here, but the main thing that you need to understand is the extent to which D3's dev team really did try to convince long-time Diablo series fans that they just didn't remember what D2 was really like... and that it was actually kinda bad. They were, quite literally, gaslighting us, insisting that our memories weren't reliable, and that the things we thought we loved didn't actually deserve those feelings of nostalgia.
It was always a strange sales pitch for a Diablo sequel; a game whose success depended heavily on the nostalgia of long-time Diablo fans. But there's a reason why gaslighting is still a thing: it works.
That's the most insidious part of gaslighting; being subjected to it really does alter your sense of reality, even if you know it's happening, and even if you do everything you can to resist. Diablo III's dev team spend months trying to convince Diablo II fans that we didn't actually love the older game at all; trying to sever that nostaligic connection. Well, guess what? It worked.
As the Diablo II Resurrected trailer ran, I felt... nothing. The sight of that original gameplay, and of its updated version, didn't elicit memories of good times spent playing Diablo II. D3's devs wanted me to move on, to stop looking back at D2 and embrace a newer, more modern game. And, to judge by my reaction to the D2:R announcement, I guess I have.
It turns out that Blizzard also had a significant Diablo III update in the works, too, just about ready for release, which didn't even get mentioned at BlizzcOnline that I can recall. It's a good one, too, which actually seems to acknowledge that solo PvE is the soul of the franchise, and facilitating solo play, and respecting solo players' time, actually is important. Hell, they actually reworked the Follower system into something that might actually be useful now, rather than being an actively awful disincentive to playing the game solo.
It says something about the state of the Diablo fan base and franchise, though, that Blizzard is still desperately hoping:
- to win back alienated D2 fans with Resurrected; or
- to win some new fans by bundling D2:R with Diablo 3 in a "Prime Evil Edition"; or
- to win some mobile users to the cause by continuing to flog their pseudo-D3-on-mobile Immortal game; and
- that all of those things can restore the Diablo franchise fan base to pre-D3 levels in time to keep Diablo IV from being an embarrassing flop.
Because that really is the game, here. Diablo III sold well, but not as well as Diablo II, and its 25% retention rate means that Blizzard shrank their Diablo franchise in the process. Diablo II: Resurrected will be the first litmus test of whether Diablo is still viable as a franchise, but if it doesn't manage at least a high seven-figure sales number "across all SKUs, across all platforms," then Diablo IV might be in serious trouble.
Psst... Hey... Blizzard. Do you want to know how to win back some of thosee Diablo fans, the ones you alienated with D3's disastrous launch, and the shocking level of contempt that you showed to Diablo fans who dared to be disappointed by that? Because I can tell you how:
Make Diablo III playable offline on PC, and give the Reaper of Souls expansion to all of your "Reaper of Souls" customers for free.
You know... the customers who only ever bought the base game, who you decided to redefine as Reaper of Souls customers even though they hadn't bought, and had no interest in buying, the Reaper of Souls expansion? Yes, them. Give them the full expansion, including the Necromancer class, for no extra cost.
And before you say it, no, I'm not demanding that Blizzard give me the expansion for nothing. I deleted the Blizzard account which my Diablo III license was tied to, so I wouldn't even qualify anymore. This really is just the right thing to do, and it should have been done years ago. It might be too late to still do it, but there's really only one way to know for sure.
And, hey, Blizzard, while you're at it, maybe bring some of the Ultimate Evil console version features like the Nemesis system (no, not that Nemesis system, the other Nemesis system) to PC as well, along with some of the new stuff that's been added to Immortal... you, know, the stuff that made long-suffering D3 fans so angry when you announced that there were "no plans to bring any of [that] to PC"? Who knows, if they like it enough, they might even give Diablo: Immortal itself a try. Just sayin'.
Diablo II: Resurrected will come down in price eventually, and when it does, I'll probably check it out. Hell, if the price is right, I might even check out D4, or D:I, since the Diablo ship seems to have people at the helm again who give a shit about the franchise and its fans. Don't get me wrong; it's good that Blizzard have finally done this, and I'm happy for people that were made happy by the announcement. But I won't be paying $55CAD to buy Diablo II again, and I won't be returning to Sanctuary anytime soon.
It will be interesting to see how many other people do, though.
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