Not to mention the code loss and workload of remaking Diablo II, as long as Blizzard wants to remake it, these are not problems, because with Diablo II's feelings, remaking must be the result of "real fragrance". Why not do it again? Because of the new work, it is also the most critical debut of Diablo: Eternal Life. When the carnival Diablo mobile game was announced, Blizzard said that the Diablo PC version did not continue, but after the mobile game was spit out, the work related to Diablo games continued.
Obviously, Blizzard's strategy for Diablo is: no sequels, taking eternal life as a springboard to advance into the mobile game market, and the main push. And Immortality is the product of the joint efforts of Blizzard and Netease. It is said that longevity is made by Netease's mobile game engine and dark plot. Compared with the workload of remaking Diablo 2, mobile games are much simpler. Immortality still continues the plot of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, which conflicts with the remake of Diablo 2.
Moreover, to put it bluntly, Blizzard saw the influence of the national service in the mobile game market, and Diablo mobile game is to enhance the influence of Blizzard's mobile game market with the help of the national service. Since it is for influence, mobile games are the focus of Diablo. If Diablo 2 is reproduced, the opponent's game will not be conducive to sales. Under the measurement, we know that the copying workload is large, and the market is only for old players; The cooperation between mobile games and Netease is much simpler, and the market is much bigger.
Therefore, in the case of related new works, it is impossible to reproduce the old version. At least in a year or two, there will be a replica to sell feelings and fill the gap. Besides, remake is a laborious but usually profitable project. Relatively speaking, making the current hot mobile games is the real money-making project.
It is also the reason of interest.
Diablo 2 adopted the innovative concepts at that time: skill points, prop synthesis system, suit, difficulty selection and so on. And this setting has been used in subsequent games.
When big companies do things, the first consideration is efficiency, followed by cost, and finally word of mouth.
Let's talk about benefits first. At present, there are two remastered games, StarCraft has been released, and warcraft 3 will be released soon. Why this order? At present, the number of starcraft players is similar to that of starcraft 2 players. Starcraft is very old, but it is still so popular now. Being popular makes it easier to gather interests. So what are the benefits of the remake of Diablo II? To promote diablo 3? Diablo 3 is a mobile game, but the charging method is really stand-alone mode. 198 is a one-time buyout. In essence, it is actually two stand-alone charging games. Once released, it will further divert Diablo 3 players, instead of increasing the total number of players like StarCraft, which makes no sense.
Let's talk about costs. Development needs manpower, material resources and time. Warcraft 3 has made a remastered version for two years, and it is said that it will not be released until the end of this year, that is, three years. The total investment for three years needs to be explained to the board of directors. After all, it is a for-profit enterprise, not a public welfare post. The order of blizzard selection: classic games such as StarCraft and Warcraft, even Diablo II remake, is the third place at most. The later a project is, the more benefits it needs, so we can only pray that the first two remastered games will catch fire so that Diablo II can remastered.
Speaking of which, by the way, my evaluation of Diablo III is not as good as I thought. I still remember that Diablo II was released in 2000, and the installation file of 1.92G was huge at that time, but players were eager for it. Why? A lot of innovations have made players feel refreshed, and the happiness brought by the game has soared. Skill points, prop synthesis system, suit, difficulty selection, etc. Even later games have been using this setting, and it is not too much to lay the future game mode. Every profession, every difficulty, and different ways of adding points must be tried one by one. The plot is wonderful and let us immerse ourselves in it. But what about diablo 3? All that can be taken out are pictures. What else is there? Innovation is always difficult, and the new version is just fried rice.
Blizzard: We have received opinions from players, and "cold rice" is on the way!
In recent years, due to the failure of Titan Plan and the intervention of Activision, Blizzard has not launched a new PC game for a long time, and has been addicted to "fried cold rice".
There is reason to believe that after Blizzard resets the old SC and WAR3, the next reappearance product will be Diablo II.
Diablo II is of great significance to Blizzard. Because this game launched in 2000 opened a new era of ARPG.
When we see Blizzard's brilliant achievements in RTS, we should not forget that Diablo II laid the foundation for ARPG and Diablo games. Many game settings in Diablo II are still unsurpassed classics at present. This also makes the game difficult to reproduce. Unlike Blizzard's own two RTS, it is difficult for ARPG to reshape the game just by improving the image quality. After all, the replacement of the game engine may be a double-edged sword.
The remake of the game is for feelings, so the best emotional card is "original taste".
The authenticity of RTS is competitive, and the authenticity of Diablo 2 includes pictures, sound effects and light and shadow. This can be seen from the fact that the reputation of diablo 3 is not as good as expected. Blizzard made diablo 3 almost subversive, but it was still regarded as "the lowest level of dark game" by Diablo II players. Therefore, the remake of Diablo II is by no means a simple picture upgrade, but a restoration.
In my opinion, I took the lead in remaking two rt's. Not because these two games are the hottest. But to cater to the increasingly popular theme of "e-sports".
A few years ago belonged to the golden age of RTS. SC and WAR3 are both strong people standing on the top of the mountain, but later they were hit by other kinds of games and fell to the altar. However, the high competitiveness of RTS has never changed, so Blizzard has been preparing for the remake of SC since SC2 ended. After SC remastered successfully, WAR3 naturally arrived as scheduled. Therefore, after these two products cater to e-sports, the next one will be Diablo II.
The blizzard carnival on 20 18 should be the worst in years. This year, players didn't wait for Diablo 4, let alone Diablo 2. However, in the 20 19 Blizzard Carnival, for the sake of self-interest, Blizzard is likely to make Diablo II appear in a new way. After all, the stock price crash is what Blizzard and Activision don't want to see again.
Well, that's my answer. Do you think Diablo II will be remake? Welcome to leave a message for discussion.
Why did it take so many years to make it? I think the main reason is that the difficulty of remaking Diablo II is the highest among Blizzard's three classic series. Judging from the remake of StarCraft and Warcraft, Blizzard wants to completely restore the original experience while improving the image quality, and does not want to make evolutionary changes. It is not easy to imitate the picture and feel of the old game with the current game engine. David Brevik, the father of Diablo, talked about this problem in an interview with IGN:
aspect ratio
The maximum resolution of Diablo 2 is 800 x 600, which is 4:3. The current games are generally 16: 10 and 16:9. If the screen is directly enlarged to a corresponding proportion, some enemies and NPCs that should have left the screen will appear in the screen "in advance", while some AI in the original work is triggered by detecting the screen position, which may cause some AI behaviors to be chaotic.
The sense of control under the old 2D engine.
The characters in the original work seem to be free to move in any direction, but in fact they are "walking the grid". The whole game map is composed of several grids, and the characters will have a slight sense of stagnation when they move between grids. It will be more troublesome to perfectly restore that feeling.
Another example of the sense of control is the change in the attack speed of weapons in the game. The original attack speed has no upper limit in theory, and changes smoothly according to the numerical value. But if the completion time of an action happens to be between two frames, the redundant part will not be reflected in the picture. Diablo 2' s engine generates 25 frames per second, but the current engine is generally based on 30/60 frames, and this small "defect" will be difficult to recover.
Although these details are small, they have great influence. If you ignore them completely, the whole game will be affected.
As for some people who say that they don't do the system again because of commercial considerations, I don't think there is any need to worry at all, because the brand Diablo II alone can make a lot of money, as easy as blowing off dust. Some players spent several years creating Diablo II remastered version in StarCraft II, which shows the great influence of this game. Moreover, after the remake of Diablo II, all three classics are on the Battle.net client, which is also good for Blizzard's platform strategy.
The Diablo II screen was recreated by the player with the StarCraft II engine:
On the other hand, David's sense of control can be solved, just look at the contemporary StarCraft remake. Moreover, some players made their own high-definition patch for Diablo 2, which realized the adaptation of high resolution and different screen ratios by narrowing the line of sight, and found no big AI problem.
Diablo 2 with HD patch:
So this technical problem is ultimately a matter of resource input, but according to Blizzard's consistent turtle speed, I'm afraid it will take a year or two to see the finished product (if I come out early, I will gladly accept a slap in the face ...).
Let me say something.
Blizzard will only pay attention to the works of South Blizzard, but try to despise the old works of North Blizzard.
For a simple example, even the lost vikings are among the storm heroes, but they are not heroes of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.
In diablo 3, only barbarians and wizards inherited Diablo II, but the mode is completely different from Diablo II.
Because Diablo binary is too difficult, unlike StarCraft, there are not many units that change high-definition maps, and Diablo 2 is unique in animation, engine and database, so it can't be directly used in the current new engine, and a lot of code is lost. In short, it is equivalent to making a new game, which consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, otherwise it would have been remade long ago.
Blizzard's principle of remaking the game is to make money through e-sports, while Diablo II has only feelings and no business opportunities at present, so the possibility of remaking it is very small. Let's play the old version by ourselves, and don't hold out too much hope.
The benefits involved are too far-reaching, many players spend a lot of money to buy equipment replacement, and Blizzard will be sued for bankruptcy.