is there a graphics remaster for diablo 2?

Starcraft was the game that got me into Blizzard games, but Diablo II was the game that captured me and created the parasocial bond with Blizzard the company that makes the current news about them suck that much more. I will circle back to this, because first, I want to explain what Diablo II was to me as a teenager. What I have found from a few rounds of remasters is this – if a remaster is a game I loved as a younger person, I will buy it and then almost aggressively not play it past a few hours in, and so far, that is also true of Diablo II Remastered. Final Fantasy X remastered looks great, but it also kind of feels like what would have happened if we had the Bleem emulator for PS2 games (remember Bleem?). If a game I liked in my younger days is remastered, I always have a general interest in trying it, to see the differences in the experience. What I find interesting about remasters personally is how little interest I tend to have in them. If you loved Diablo II, it’s the same game, and if you hated Diablo II, it’s still the same game. The core of the game remains untouched, and that means how much you’ll like it is unaffected by the remaster, unless you’re a graphics snob. It has the same visual style and sheen, but in significantly higher resolution and gameplay smoothness through higher framerates.

The short review is this: Diablo II Resurrected is a great remaster, which reflects what remasters should be – the very same base game with some layered-on improvements that don’t affect the core experience, and meaningful modernization that brings the classic experience up to modern standards. Diablo II is also a beloved classic game that came out in a weird era, meaning that it wasn’t particularly easy to play on a modern PC without a guide and some care, and dealing with the warts of technology – the limited 800×600 resolution and how that would be scaled and pulled into form for modern widescreens, mostly.

It had been done by a third-party studio, which became a Blizzard studio during the process. Expectations of what the Diablo II remaster could be and what it would be were both sky-high but also easy to be cynical about. The outlook going into it was interesting – Blizzard had completely botched the Warcraft III Reforged launch and overall design, which should have been an easy layup, and that game’s launch sort of set the tone for modern Blizzard. Diablo II Resurrected came out last Thursday.

Is there a graphics remaster for diablo 2?