While we know that a Diablo 4 is in the works, it’s looking like we probably won’t see the game for quite some time. In the meantime, however, it recently came to light that Blizzard is also in the midst of making a Diablo 2 remake. We don’t know much about what that will look like, or if we’ll potentially get it before the fourth game, but rumor on the street is we will see it revealed soon.

Kaiser499 took to Twitter to claim that the Diablo 2 remake is going to be titled Diablo 2 Resurrected, and would be revealed alongside several other things at this year’s BlizzCon, which Blizzard is calling BlizzConline as it will be a digital-only event. No other details are given about what to expect. Kaiser was also the original leaker for Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2, so they have a solid record, though of course, like all leaks, take it with a grain of salt.

BlizzConline is set to start on February 19th and run until the 20th. We will see if this information is true soon enough.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic
Diablo II Resurrected
Hearthstone Expansion
Diablo: Immortal Release Date
Mobile Announcement(s)? (Warcraft Pet Battle Game)
New Heroes, Maps, Lore Sneak Peek for Overwatch 2
New Class, Area Reveal for Diablo IV#blizzconline #leaks pic.twitter.com/blDKltJrzl

— ₭₳ł₴ɆⱤ499 (@Kaiser499) February 15, 2021

With the announcement of Diablo 4, people are hyped for more hellish raids, tons of loot and endless fun with friends. But it’s going to be a long, long time before we get Diablo 4. Therefore, people are naturally nostalgic for the past, and with Blizzard there is a recent willingness to revisit their past with the likes of World of Warcraft Classic and a remaster of Warcraft 3. What about the beloved Diablo 2 then? Well, unfortunately, it seems unlikely.

In an interview with Gamespot, the original Creators of the Diablo series talked about the series and its storied past. There’s interesting information there, but some of the disheartening kind for fans is they reveal that the game was almost completely lost when they had to rebuild the game based on a home version, and in the process most of the game’s original assets were destroyed. Therefore, if Blizzard ever did want to pursue a remaster or enhanced remake they would have to basically rebuild those from scratch.

“I had a big chunk of it. Went home, pulled out the hard drive or whatever we did back then. Spent a few days reconstructing it, which ended up working fine, except that we lost all the history. We lost a lot of the assets, art assets. It would make it very difficult for Blizzard to do a Diablo 2 Remaster because all the assets we used are pretty much gone. They’d have to make them from scratch.”

While it isn’t impossible, the effort Blizzard would have to put into a Diablo 2 remaster would be quite a bit more than the typical enhanced re-release. With enough time and resources, it could still happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.

When BlizzCon 2017 was done and dusted, many fans were satisfied with the announcements made. However, there were a number of questions raised. Even if there was going to be no Diablo news, what was the status of the rumoured Diablo 2 remaster? Would there be a Warcraft 3 remaster happening or not?

PCGamesN spoke to senior producer Peter Stilwell who’s working on the Classic Games team and noted that StarCraft was easy to remaster because it’s balance was pretty much “perfect”. Right now, Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 have a number of issues that need to be ironed out before remastering.

That includes a “stale” map pool in Warcraft 3 and that the Undead “only really has one build order”. There are requests to change the game being made and the PTR remains active. Blizzard will keep soliciting feedback in the meantime.

For Diablo 2, it’s a question of hackers on the leaderboards. Stilwell’s end goal is to “keep rolling seasons but maybe eventually be good enough at combating them that you see real names at the top of the leaderboard again.” So until that’s sorted, a remaster is on hold. Once Blizzard figures out a way to fix things without affecting the two games’ current communities, there could be some progress made. But that won’t be any time soon.