Does anyone know if there was ever a consideration to make Diablo II: Ressurected in pre-rendered 3D instead of the chosen Full 3D?
I was rather disappointed when I saw the first game play trailer for the remake and saw that it was going to be in full 3D and not the 90s style of pre-rendered 3D only with better and more detail. I think they really dropped the ball on the nostalgia bit as the gameplay; while looking great, doesn’t have the same feel as the older style.
I know it can be hard to implement based on the limited design constraints from the old resolution and aspect ratio but would it have not been easier to simply AI upscale the textures (with touch ups) and increase the resolution and frame rate instead of basically making the game from scratch?
I think this example is done in post-production with captured footage of a modded version of the game but I don’t see why the game could not have looked like the game play in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXgElbqjmU
I have noticed a lot of posts asking for an HD Upscale with improved resolution and frame rate for the first Diablo game on mod forums so people can enjoy it on modern screens (It looks terrible on anything other then an old CRT) so here is hoping the devs take notice 
I wouldn’t be surprised if they considered upscaling/touching up the game, as some of the upscaled footage looks very impressive.
3D rendered is the norm for games and has been for quite some time, that’s probably why they went that way. There is the option to instantly switch to the old sprite graphics engine if that’s how you want to play.
I heard that was only going to be for the sprites themselves and not the back grounds or am I wrong? I can’t seem to find any video of this mode in action.
The new graphics engine is a complete 3D overlay running on top of the old game. When you switch off the enhanced graphics, the overlay is removed revealing the same old sprite graphics engine of the original game with some basic scaling to make it fit on modern monitors/resolutions without skewing the image. The original Diablo 2/LoD game is literally the beating heart of Diablo 2:Resurrected, modified of course to bring us the enhanced features, modern Battle.net compatibility, etc.
Your linked Video look not bad at all but if they only did AI upscalling the people would not buy it for 40€.
I agree with you that the new graphic looks a bit different. But i like what i saw and i’m a D2 Fan for many years.
What would be possible that they improve the “old style” a bit for same resolution as the new one.
Oh I did not realize that the new graphics were just an overlay so it does make sense. Yes I probably wouldn’t pay 55 dollars for something like in that video but I’m sure a lot of people would pay 20 like with the original Starcraft Remaster. What I was hoping for was basically the same frame rate and resolution and sprite size as that in the video but with a new overlay of pre-rendered EXTREMELY detailed assets.
That’s why D2R is a full remaster 
I agree with you that the Video looks nice for the old graphics
Rod Ferguson mentioned during one of the E3/State of Play interviews about how they originally approached the remaster, and said they seen the AI upscaled videos, but thought that they didn’t do the game justice, which is why they decided to go all out.
People would pay 100 bucks just to get this game on the new Bnet client with server stability. That’s the sleeper cherry right there.