At the turn of the millennium, game developer Blizzard Entertainment was on a roll. Their titles, covering real-time strategy in “Warcraft” and “Starcraft,” and hack-and-slash roleplaying in “Diablo,” have been hits on PC. “Diablo II,” their sequel to the 1997 original, was released in 2000 to even greater success. Taking everything that made its predecessor great and improving on them, “Diablo II” and its expansion “Lord of Destruction” became a definitive of early 2000s gaming. While a third sequel was released in 2012 and a fourth in development, the second installment remains fondly remembered. When Blizzard announced a re-master of “Diablo II,” fans were intrigued, particularly with one decades-spanning feature.

PC Gamer tells us that Blizzard Entertainment’s planned re-master “Diablo II: Resurrected” is going the extra mile in sheer faithfulness to its original form from 2000. How faithful? Imagine you played the original “Diablo II” on PC, several times even. All those saved games, particularly of replays, will likely have high-level player characters with a mint’s worth of money and an armory of high-quality or unique equipment options. If you somehow saved your original “Diablo II” game/character files, they can be carried over to “Diablo II: Resurrected.” That is a gap potentially 20 years long.

“Resurrected” producer Matthew Cederquist excitedly revealed this quirk on a roundtable with IGN Middle East, along with game designer Andrew Abrahamian. The fact that two-decade old “Diablo II” saves will still work on the re-mastered edition is only further proof that the Blizzard team kept the spirit of the original game intact even with the fresh CG overlays. Fans were excited enough that they could toggle between current-gen 3D character models of “Resurrected” and the grainy 2D sprites of the classic midgame. But being able to just pick up from where one left off so many years ago is mind-blowing.

 “Diablo II: Resurrected” is coming soon to both PC and consoles, with current-gen perks such as higher resolutions (4320p/8K on PC, 4K/60fps on consoles) and in-game achievements for console versions. No release date is confirmed. The original “Diablo II” however remains as is on the Legacy BattleNet while its re-master is on the present-day BattleNet.

Image courtesy of Game Rant