"Just the fact that it's running on a small device or screen doesn't necessarily mean that it's a small-scale undertaking," Cheng said, declaring that this is the studio's most ambitious Diablo project yet.Unfortunately for Diablo 2 Resurrected, mobile spinoff Diablo 2 Resurrected spoiled that momentum. From the announcement, through development, until launch, as well as afterward, Diablo 2 Resurrected was criticised for its absurd microtransactions prompting the community to protest. This is the same community that forced Blizzard out of their D2R Items real-money auction house, the same community who demanded a new loot system, Loot2.0 which made Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls the most popular action-based loot-based game of the period.
In many ways still feel, abandoned by Blizzard. Diablo 2 Resurrected may begin to correct the situation. Blizzard is a firm in the process of transition. Firmly in the middle of the planned Microsoft merger Diablo 2 Resurrected could prove to be the final game developed by the "Old Blizzard," and there's a lot of pressure to give fans the game they've always wanted, especially because in the years that followed Diablo 3, other games that are in the same genre, like Path of Exile, have been able to challenge Blizzard's looted crown.
There's a central loop in Diablo that's the key to the game's success or not working. Are you satisfied to walk into the dungeon to mindlessly fight mobs, and then collect loot? If yes it is, then Diablo 2 Resurrected is halfway to being loved by its fans. If the team has once time again altered the loot system in the same way as they did with the original release of Diablo 3, then we're in trouble.
The book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels the chapter that deals with the calamity that was Diablo 3's launch tells how one Blizzard producer played through the game literally hundreds of hours until they found one piece of legendary loot. When that light in orange finally appeared from a random player, the developer walked up to the item only to find the character he was playing couldn't even utilize it. The loot system was so fundamentally flawed that the thrill to grind for hours, after which relief of receiving something unique, was broken.
This was eventually fixed to where you could only ever locate specific levels of loot that would work for your specific class, and also the rate at which early-game legendary items dropped was higher. Even though the legendary items you got did not break the game, you still felt you'd occasionally get a small hit of dopamine and keep your hands on the rope.
In the event that Diablo 2 Resurrected gets that right and offers a similar loot system as Loot2.0 and Loot2.0 in Diablo 3, then we're already concerned about how long we'll need to devote to the game. The disaster in Diablo 3 is the best chance that has ever happened to the Diablo II Resurrected Ladder Items franchise on a go-forward basis, and combine that alongside Immortal's Immortal controversy, it feels like Blizzard has a simple list of potential potholes to avoid to keep it in the good books of it's best players.
