Diablo 2: Resurrected's Technical Alpha has given players their first taste of the classic's return. A few decades have passed since the original game's launch, and there are some key mechanics that players may have forgotten about. For some players, these forgotten mechanics may be dealbreakers, or at least take some getting used to. Of course, many of them are what make up the core appeal of the game.
The important thing to remember is that Diablo 2 is a game from a different time, one of the relics of a more difficult era of video games. With that comes some obvious gameplay aspects that players may want to take into consideration before really diving in. After all, forget some of these and it can turn a delightful experience into a brutally difficult one.
Town Portal and Identify Scrolls
Diablo 3 allows players to use town portals and identify gear without any real hassle, but Diablo 2 is a different beast entirely. In Diablo 2, players have to teleport back home and identify objects with single-use scrolls, which also take up space in the player's inventory. This can be a major inconvenience when in the bowels of a dungeon or exploring the overworld, but it's something players need to take into account while playing.
Luckily, players can find spell tomes early on that the scrolls can be slotted into, saving some room on inventory space. However, it's still important to keep an eye on how many are left on the inventory screen. Players will be identifying more loot in Diablo 2 than they have to in Diablo 3, and while it's fairly easy to find more of the scrolls, going without them can leave an amazing piece of gear stuck in an inventory slot unused.
Town Portal scrolls are another issue, and one that can have negative ramifications if players aren't mindful of their stock. Diablo 2 is harder than many recent ARPGs, and it's important to make a quick escape at times. Slip up, and players might find an untimely death, which has some serious ramifications in Diablo 2.
Inventory Loss Upon Death
One of the biggest changes in Diablo 3 is how the game handles death compared to Diablo 2. While it is possible to play Diablo 3 on hardcore mode, which makes death a permanent condition, normally, death doesn't have many serious ramifications in the standard Diablo 3 fare. Of course, Diablo 2 approaches dying in a markedly different way.
Bite the dust in Diablo 2 and players will lose everything they have equipped at the time, along with some gold. It's possible to recover the dropped items, but players will need to journey back to wherever their corpse is. That's easier said than done, though, because the area will likely still be crawling with monsters needing to be dispatched. If those monsters caused the player to die in the first place, doing it without preferred equipment will make things much more difficult.
It's a good idea to keep a backup set of equipment stashed back in town. That gear probably won't be as good as what players had before, but it can keep a playthrough from being bottlenecked. The death mechanic won't click with every new player, especially considering how less serious the penalty for death has become in recent games. However, it's somewhat refreshing to see, and it certainly makes difficult moments tenser.
Two Ability Slots
Many Diablo fans have become accustomed to games with plentiful ability slots rounding out what their characters can do moment to moment. These days, most ARPGs will offer four or five slots for players to drop abilities into, leading to more complex combinations and builds to destroy enemies with. However, Diablo 2 approaches skills a bit differently.
Out of the gate, players will have room for two abilities at once, one bound to left-click and the other bound to right-click. It's possible to adjust hotkeys for more, but it's something that the game doesn't outright state, so many players may feel limited in that regard. It can be difficult to swap skills in the middle of a fight, too, which makes things even more complicated. Diablo 2 classes have a wide variety of skills between them, so it can be difficult to pin down what works best in a given situation.
One of those ability slots will likely be taken up by a standard attack that doesn't consume mana, at least early on, so picking which ability to pack is a difficult choice. Luckily, the Diablo 2: Resurrected boasts a better UI than the original, so it's easier to get at-a-glance information.Â
Health and Mana Potions
While Health and Mana potions were also featured in Diablo 3, they're more significant in Diablo 2. Regeneration is a lot slower, and popping a potion won't instantly heal the player when using a standard version. Plus, they take up inventory slots when a player doesn't have them on their belt, which can be a problem early on. That leads to a delicate balancing act of having enough resources to make it through a quest while keeping some space reserved for any loot that's acquired.
Combined with some of the other mechanics featured in Diablo 2, keeping track of Health and Mana potions is paramount to being successful. With a player's inventory constantly on the line, Health and Mana and more important metrics. Considering how rapidly they can deplete under certain circumstances, players will want to be strategic about how they're using them and when.
Those that have never had the chance to experience Diablo 2 will want to be on their toes, as it's a far less casual game than Diablo 3 is. That being said, it's had a lasting effect on games as a whole, and after spending some time with it, it's clear why. Diablo 2 is one of the most iconic PC games ever created, and with the improvements that Blizzard has brought along with Resurrected, it seems likely that the game will manage to last another twenty years.
Diablo 2: Resurrected is in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
