blizzard Diablo 2 Remaster? A "Classic Revival" to Be Announced at IGN Summer

[Starym 3,801]

 

IGN's Summer of Gaming event has posted a schedule for their June events, which has brought up some interesting questions and theories. We know Blizzard are participating in the event and one of the entries on the schedule is labeled as an "Unannounced Classic Revival", without any attribution for which studio it belongs to. As we all know, Diablo 2 remaster rumors have been swirling around since BlizzCon 2018, with the recent Diablo: Resurrected one having stirred things up (the one about Activision-owned studio Vicarious Visions working on the remaster and it coming out this year).

Both of the above seem somewhat flimsy, however, as the IGN event has many participating studios and not all of them have actual new game reveals planned, and it seems more probable that Blizzard will just be showing off some new Shadowlands footage or something similar. As to the actual Resurrected rumor, Vicarious Visions is actually known for remasters and general porting other companies' games to different platforms (with Destiny 2 PC being the most well known), but they are actually already working on remasters of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 at the moment (for PC, Xbox and PS4, no less, with a release date in September). Then there's also the whole "all Diablo 2 source code and assets were lost" thing, making a remaster a very complex, basically from-scratch process.

But, if we were to be optimistic, there could be a remaster coming. Diablo 4 isn't really close to release at all; there would certainly be many people interested in it; Vicarious Visions is actually a large sized studio (over 200 employees) and are experts at exactly this type of thing; Blizzard have a bit of a reputation to regain as far as remasters go after the WC3: Reforged fiasco.

In any case, we'll know more on June 24th, and you can watch the IGN Summer event here.

So, what do you think about all this? Is there a chance we get a Diablo 2 remaster? And what would you want that remaster to be, anyway? Just the same game with new graphics and everything else left as-is, or significant upgrades in terms of UI, stash space and similar quality of life issues?

[Dejo93 1,023]

I'm scared. After the WC3 fiasco and the false advertising, I will be skeptical. WC3 remastered was the only game I refunded and this is coming from a fan of Blizzard games

[Arcling 898]

17 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

I'm scared. After the WC3 fiasco and the false advertising, I will be skeptical. WC3 remastered was the only game I refunded and this is coming from a fan of Blizzard games

WC3 was way bigger in scale, since it included a lot of remodeling and they were short on time, not being able to finish remade in-engine cutscenes and several basic features being broken. I'd assume D2 to be something more in vein of SC:R, however due to source code being lost, this remaster might be difficult to do. 

This rumor seems rather dubious, but we will see.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Arcling

[Seksi 212]

We will see, and while wc3 reforged was the first blizz game I refunded as well, I have actually been playing it more recently, with classic graphics and the https://www.w3champions.com/ ladder, which is actually really awesome! Ultimately SC:R did go very well, so hopefully D2:R will as well ?

But no pre-ordering, of course.

[mada7 29]

There's basically 5 options as I see it for what they could possibly remaster:
Diablo 1 or 2

Warcraft 1 or 2

World of Warcraft Burning Crusade