Blizzard Announce Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 Remasters!

Rejoice fans of classic Blizzard! Seminal hack-and-slash Diablo 2 is set for a remaster. If that isn’t exciting enough, then brace yourselves for another nerdgasm. Blizzard is also going to remaster the fantastic real-time strategy game, Warcraft 3. Prepare your clicking fingers and ready yourself for no sleep!

Can’t cope… pleasure overload…

This is, and I’ll be modest here, AWESOME NEWS!

Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 launched in 2000 and 2002 respectively to critical acclaim. They were both fantastically brilliant games. I do not think it’s any coincidence that both games were excellent because they both worked off the same formula – take what made the predecessors great and build upon it.

What was Diablo 2 / Warcraft 3?

Not knowing the Diablo series, as a gamer, is an unforgivable sin. Warcraft 3 is a little more forgivable, but I shall get onto that.

Diablo 2 you may be familiar with based on the more recent sequel (called Diablo 3 would you believe…). If you are not, however, it is a dungeon crawler based on RPG elements and a healthy dose of D&D style weapons. The game itself is quite remarkable for still standing the test of time. Even today the servers are still quite active. Someone even recently broke a record by completing a pacifist run of Diablo 2.

Warcraft 3 is slightly less well known in a somewhat tragically ironic way that the game it spawned (World of Warcraft) overshadowed it entirely. It was an excellent RTS game setting the traditional style of Orcs vs Humans, but also introducing the Scourge. It is however mostly known for simply providing pretty much the entire backstory to the original World of Warcraft games. Arthas, The Lich King, Illidan, Jaina Proudmore etc. all featured. As a side note, Warcraft 3 is often credited for being the basis from which Dota and League of Legends were based.

Is the games are so great, why are they getting remastered?

At the risk of offending some people. They haven’t aged well, at least, not anymore. While Diablo 2 is still passable, Warcraft 3 is hard to get into these days with rather chunky graphics.

It also should not be denied that both games have a solid fan base with many actually preferring Diablo 2 to its sequel. The sequel I would add, in my personal opinion, while good, failed to capture the depth of the previous titles. There were also some rather scathing reviews of it, not entirely fair in retrospect, but still.

It has however been reported by PCGAMESN that Blizzard is actively hiring on their website, specifically for these games.

A remaster would be a great idea and as long as they do not tamper with them too much, they are a guaranteed success.

I am quite a big fan of Blizzard. From Diablo 1 to Overwatch to World of Warcraft. There is very little of theirs I haven’t played and enjoyed. When Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 Remastered get released, there will be no change in this trend. As the popular meme goes – “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!”