Is a D2 remaster being worked on by Vicarious which is now part of Blizzard?

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1352703336043130880

Activision Blizzard has moved its Vicarious Visions studio from the Activision side of the business to the Blizzard side.

“After collaborating with Vicarious Visions for some time and developing a great relationship, Blizzard realized there was an opportunity for [Vicarious Visions] to provide long-term support,” a representative explained to us. They declined to specify what the team has been working on with Blizzard, or for how long.

As part of the move, Vicarious Visions studio head Jen Oneal has been promoted to Blizzard executive vice president of development, where she joins the company’s leadership team and will report directly to Blizzard president J. Allen Brack.

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Not a smoking gun on confirming a remaster, but definitely a big finger pointing towards it being more of a possibility.

Several “There won’t be a D2: Remaster” posts to follow. :slight_smile:

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I dont think it is possible to read it in any other way than Vicarious Visions having worked on D2R. Though I guess Lost Vikings is an alternative theory… ^^
Which to be fair, is not the same as D2R ever releasing, but it certainly increases the odds. A lot.

A third theory could be a PC version of Diablo Immortal :joy:

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they could be working on anything lol

A company mostly known for doing Remasters/ports. Blizzard do not have a lot of games left that fits in.

Well, WoW for console maybe :laughing:
Damn, if it was WoW for console, I need to go buy some more Activision stocks then.

It’s already at the highest it’s ever been. $95ish. When SC II was launched it was $13.50.

Yeah, it has been a wild corona-driven ride over the last year. Only thing that seems to push it these days is CoD. WoW on console though… that could give it another push.

I suspect the stock will be over $500 in ten years. WoW on console, WoW on mobile, Diablo on mobile, a dozen other likely mobile games, and if a Starcraft 3 gets made - Huge dollars across the board. I set a reminder for this post to notify me in ten years so I can check if I’m correct. :rofl:

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Hopefully Blizzard can park the hype train on this soon! My ears have been perked on an upcoming Diablo 2 “platform update” announced by Nevalistis on the old D2 forums in early 2019… Since then, no word from Blizzard about it… Only rumors.

The non-Diablo/Blizzard gaming community sound extremely bummed about this :smiley:

I can understand them I guess. We have seen studios being merged into bigger ones an endless amount of times. It rarely goes well for the ones being eaten.

Well, some more news/rumors about this, as well as other details about Blizzard.
No more Classics team? That is a bit sad.
As for D2R it basically says the same as the old rumor in mid-2020 did.

Until last year, the Diablo II remake was set to be developed by Blizzard’s Team 1, part of the company’s Irvine, California, campus that had become known for reworking classic games. Its most recent release, in January 2020, was a remake called Warcraft III: Reforged. The title was poorly received due to glitches and missing features, earning 59 out of 100 points on the review aggregator Metacritic — the lowest score a Blizzard game has ever gotten.
Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged.

Team 1 wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of Warcraft III: Reforged on its next project, the remake of Diablo II. Shortly after the postmortem, however, Blizzard pulled that project from the team and put the division behind Diablo IV in charge. A group at Vicarious Visions is also working on the remake, which was known as Diablo II: Resurrected.

On Oct. 15, 2020, Blizzard informed members of Team 1 that it was reorganizing the entire division, according to the people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. In the following weeks, members of the team were given opportunities to interview for jobs elsewhere within Blizzard. Those who did not find positions in the company were gradually cut. Others left for independent studios recently started by high-profile company veterans, such as Frost Giant Inc. and DreamHaven Inc., started by Blizzard co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer Mike Morhaime, whose departure widely signaled the beginning of Activision’s takeover.

Team 1 was also responsible for the games Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II. Blizzard slowed down development support of Heroes of the Storm in 2018. On the same day that Blizzard said it was reorganizing the division, it announced publicly that StarCraft II was ending all ongoing development.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/blizzard-absorbs-activision-studio-after-dismantling-classic-games-team

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Just read this and posted in another thread - crazy stuff, but it does make some sense, especially with the recent radio silence from the Classic team on WC3 Reforged.

It would explain quite a bit.

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The fact it’s specifically referred to as a remake and not a remaster is good news!

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Maybe they figured D4 wouldn’t pull in the revenue they thought it would?

Might as well release D4 and D2 (Reboot, Retooled, Revamped, Remade, Remastered, Regimmeyourmoneynerd, etc.) around (or) the same.

That’s just :moneybag: in the :bank: !

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Show me the $.

It may take long and perhaps it did, but if there would be a reveal we will have the game at hand about 1 year tops. But, please understand people will always be sceptic towards this idea even after a reveal were to be given, considering what they saw with Warcraft 3 Reforged.

There are a few beefs about this whole D2RM thing though. Remake or Remaster? Eh, whatever…
First of all, open trading is a mess and this needs to be addressed abit without blockading it entirely. If you’re defending extremes like trading should be completely nullified, please see the GoG version of Diablo 1 where everything is still intact 25+ years later and upcoming promises of trading with D4. Thanks. Your views hold no merit at the face of whole community for a game you don’t ever intend to play.

Second, there’s this bot issue and there could be a few background work for teaming up with Google AI or cloudtech whatever before they step forward with promises of renewed Diablo 2. In case I’m gonna play a new D2, I’d pretty much expect it to not be a botfest but I’m also aware it’s hard and time consuming to come up with an ultimate solution that never had infrastructure work done along the years. It can be sloggish to work with or affect load times.

Third, a remake or remaster will come with new DRM options and renewed EULA. If they renew the EULA just to send cease and desist letters to modders, history may repeat. If they give it to third party off-shore companies, even more so. DRM and renewed strict EULA against modifications are ruining what they built up with v1.10 and onwards with the modding community. Who wouldn’t like to see MedianXL with improved graphics? DRM might ruin some of this picture.
I get that Blizzard wanted nothing to do with ValvE after they won rights to DotA in courts but in here a renewed EULA stating ownership to every user created map/content, might do more damage than you may have intended.

Lastly, there are tons of removed content from Diablo 2 it appears; spells, monsters. A year or two ago, a guild system revealed to be cut from the game years ago. If such idealistic approaches addressed above are not possible due to infrastructure or being so demanding, I’d like to appreciate cut content from the game at least.
This would separate the D2RM from the classic D2:LoD and make it a worthy purchase. Including DRM might piss off modders and ruin what you built but main game would remain untouched anyway. Mess of third party trading and bots can be pardoned given it’s a 20 year old game at this point but under-delivering shouldn’t be an option.

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Welp, if Jason Schreier is correct looks like VV is working on D2R. Have no problems eating crow. Just figured any news would have happened after the releases of DI and D4

Warcraft 3 Reforged was advertised as Remake, and somehow in the middle of the development, it became remaster.

All the WC3 campaigns that supposed to be a remake got thrown away.

Also, how many D2 players are ready for the always online for D2 Remake or their new policy, D2R is not moddable?

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Classic D2 will continue to exist in a single player or open Bnet form.

Cutting the old official D2 servers is the right step for the longevity of D2 Resurrected.

Due to fan outrage about said changes. They decided to nit change some story elements that have been retconned by WoW with all new cutscenes. But that wasn’t the issue, higher ups at Activision pushing for its release at least a year a head of schedule to cash in on it was.

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