Rumor: Diablo II remaster coming this year

Blizzard and Vicarious Visions will release a remaster of Diablo II at the end of this year, a French game website claims citing sources. Blizzard would announce the remaster later this year under the name Diablo II Resurrected.

Diablo II Resurrected will be released in the fourth quarter of this year, unless the corona crisis causes a delay, writes the French website Actugaming. Blizzard would be helped by Vicarious Visions, the studio behind the Crash Bandicoot trilogy that also worked on the port of Destiny 2.

The site claims to have received the information from sources. Actugaming previously correctly announced the arrival of Diablo 4, Shadowlands and Overwatch 2. If the rumor is true, it would be striking; the creators of Diablo II, released in 2000, announced last year that the entire backup of the game’s source code and assets should be considered lost. Much of the game would therefore have to be built from the ground up, making a remaster unlikely.

According to Actugaming, the arrival of Diablo IV would have prompted Blizzard to make a remaster of Diablo II. That Blizzard has several remasters of games on the schedule, the company announced at the beginning of this year during the presentation of its quarterly figures.

Actugaming has also heard from its sources that Blizzard has learned from the poor reception of Warcraft III Reforged that it needs to communicate more clearly that it is about remasters and not remakes. In addition, the sources said that World of Warcraft is getting two more expansions in the next three years, in addition to Shadowlands, and that Blizzard has three mobile games in development.