Diablo II: Resurrected impressions: Maybe not the best time to bring back evil

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  Since this review starts with a heavy-handed intro, this gallery focuses on the remastered CGI cutscenes included in the package. Click through this review's additional pages to see screens from live gameplay. [credit: Blizzard ]

Where do I even start with Diablo II: Resurrected? Unfortunately for its creators at Blizzard and developers at Vicarious Visions, the answer isn't "the game."

We have to hash some other stuff out first, and I appreciate your patience with this, because no review of Diablo II: Resurrected (now live for $40 on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch) is complete without an explainer like this at the outset. (Should you not need the refresher on Activision Blizzard's recent woes, skip to the section titled "Delivering good work in a bad era" and start there.)

In the years after Diablo's early '00s heyday, its creators at Blizzard racked up some infamy. In late 2019, the decades-old game developer capitulated to the Chinese government over pro-Hong Kong statements made by esports players (though thankfully, the decision was reversed soon after). Months later, Blizzard shipped WarCraft III: Reforged, which did not meet the publisher's usual standards (especially because WC3R wiped out the previous functioning game in favor of a broken, feature-incomplete client). Worse, since WC3R's launch, months of agonizing silence about any updates and promised features have spoken volumes about Blizzard's apparent lack of plans for the game.

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