Bloomberg (Schreier): Vicarious Visions working on Diablo 2 Remake; Blizzard "Team 1" dismantled last fall

[colorblindmode]

Wtf is Blizzard doing? Diablo 4 feels forever away, WoW is still doing WoW stuff, and Overwatch 2 seems like more of an expansion than another game.

At some point they have to do like WoW 2 right? Project Titan dying feels like it left a gaping hole in the potential MMO space.

 

[Maple]

Just so I understand this -

- Activision/Blizzard executives set up Team 1 to fail with Warcraft 3: Reforged with unrealistic deadlines and rushed production.
- Warcraft 3: Reforged releases and is unexpectedly a complete mess.
- Executives then demolish Team 1 and sends them elsewhere.
- Executives then take Vicarious Visions, an outstanding development team that could have been working on THPS 3 remake, and instead dissolves them into Blizzard to work on a Diablo 2 remake - which could have been handled well by Team 1 if they hadn't been set up to fail by management in the first place.

Do I have that right?

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Footage of blizzard and team 1

 

[DerbyCityDerek]

Diablo 2 definitely needs more than just a graphical facelift. There are tons of well-documented bugs that cause things like the character info screen to show wildly incorrect information, skills to not work as described or intended, etc. Duriel's boss fight in the end of Act 2 is awful. There's balancing issues out the wazoo. It could also DESPERATELY use some minor QOL features.

I love the game dearly but I do hope that this is more than what they did for, say, the original Starcraft.

 

[Vanillalite]

D4 must not even be close to releasing in beta.

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It feels off even if you don't think D2 and D4 are similar. One of these must be far off. I doubt they'd drop the remake and D4 in the same time frame.

 

[Dolce]

At some point they have to do like WoW 2 right? Project Titan dying feels like it left a gaping hole in the potential MMO space.

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Doubt it. It takes a development team of hundreds just to keep up with WOW. Developing brand new AAA MMOs is just not a thing in 2021.

 

[canderous]

D2 Remake by VV actually sounds good to me.

 

[Finaj]

Wtf is Blizzard doing? Diablo 4 feels forever away, WoW is still doing WoW stuff, and Overwatch 2 seems like more of an expansion than another game.

At some point they have to do like WoW 2 right? Project Titan dying feels like it left a gaping hole in the potential MMO space.

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No way. WoW is still immensely popular, the content releases are consistent, and there's just way too much legacy content that would be lost by making a new game.

 

[AuthenticM]

Their previous remakes quality dont mean anything if now they have to deal with blizzards shit management

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was going to say, yeah.

Hopefully the Diablo 2 remake ends up great, because that game is important to me.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Curious, is this going to force you to use the Remake if you try to use the original D2 and overwrite the original?

 

[Dolce]

Curious, is this going to force you to use the Remake if you try to use the original D2 and overwrite the original?

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With how much in the game needs to change it's going to likely need new servers. So I doubt it.

 

[Marano]

Team 1 was fully capable, the deadlines were not. I trust VV, but no one should be trusting Activision-Blizzard. Literally every person of importance is gone, and most of them (including Morhaime) are in a new company.

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I think som went to obsidian or inxile too no?

 

[Firemind]

With how much in the game needs to change it's going to likely need new servers. So I doubt it.

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At the very least the D2 servers are most likely going to get nuked.

 

[Aangster]

So this pushes Diablo IV further back. May cause issues if IV's direction overlaps too much with a II remake that could be on the same engine powering III/IV?

Is Blizzard at least going to work its way towards salvaging the clusterfuck that is Reforged?

 

[CorpseLight]

Why would they remake Diablo 2 when Diablo 4 is supposed to be more in line with Diablo 2's darker tone....

Are they going to try for annual Diablo games or something?
Diablo mobile
Diablo 2 Remake
Diablo 4

Diablo isnt Call of Duty, its not going to work.

 

[Anoregon]

D4 must not even be close to releasing in beta.

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Yeah id say late 2022 release at the earliest. Probably 2023. I could see d2 remake releasing more than a year prior.

 

[Pein]

you'd think they would just put em on Starcraft duty.

 

[Krozur]

At this point, each year is a steady decline of faith in Blizzard.

 

[hydruxo]

Depressing to see a talented team starting to really find success with their games only to get shoved into a bigger company and churn out whatever shit they force them to do.

 

[Dolce]

Why would they remake Diablo 2 when Diablo 4 is supposed to be more in line with Diablo 2's darker tone....

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The funny thing is Diablo 2 was a lot less dark than Diablo 1 and people complained that Diablo 2 was "too cartoony" when it released and bright.

Diablo 2 is more than just visuals, though and Diablo 4's gameplay decisions make it quite different. It honestly looks much darker than Diablo 2 in general from what I've seen too.

 

[Lukar]

Diablo isnt Call of Duty, its not going to work.

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This is the company that thought releasing nine different Guitar Hero games / spinoffs in one year was a good idea. Their MO is running everything good and remotely unique that they have into the ground until it stops making money, at which point they throw the devs into the CoD abyss (or Blizzard now, I guess).

 

[ConfusedOwl]

Everybody should backup their Diablo 2 installers before this comes out.

 

[Ab4dd0n]

D2 Remake by VV is good news, but...

 

[Spine Crawler]

so basically the makers of starcraft 2 are no more. its basically core blizzard gone. now they are making three diablo games... wtf.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

D2 Remake late this year, early next to re-engage the community in good faith, as while no matter how good Diablo Immortal is the core crowd isn't going to be into it. Meanwhile Diablo Immortal will foster a new crowd. Both feed into Diablo 4 in 2023.

Just guessing here. I have no inside knowledge.

 

[NeoBob688]

Mixed emotions. That the team behind StarCraft 2 is now gone is unfortunate, spells bad news for future RTS content from the company. But Diablo 2 Remake in principle sounds exciting as fuck.

 

[CorpseLight]

D2 Remake late this year, early next to re-engage the community in good faith, as while no matter how good Diablo Immortal is the core crowd isn't going to be into it. Meanwhile Diablo Immortal will foster a new crowd. Both feed into Diablo 4 in 2023.

Just guessing here. I have no inside knowledge.

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If D2 Remake launches this year it will be a hot mess on scale of WC3:Reforged; no matter how great VV is.
Diablo Immortal is probably this years game and I am sure it will make them a lot of money, because mobile games always do...somehow.
But it won't be generally well accepted by the 'core' Diablo fanbase, it hasn't been since the announcement.

 

[7thFloor]

Sound like a better situation for the D2 remake

 

[Maple]

D4 must not even be close to releasing in beta.

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The Diablo 2 remake seems like it could be late this year or early next year.

Diablo IV feels like a 2023 game.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

If D2 Remake launches this year it will be a hot mess on scale of WC3:Reforged; no matter how great VV is.
Diablo Immortal is probably this years game and I am sure it will make them a lot of money, because mobile games always do...somehow.
But it won't be generally well accepted by the 'core' Diablo fanbase, it hasn't been since the announcement.

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You know VV has been rumored to have been working on it for quite a bit, right? This isn't new information or like they just started working on it.

 

[Firemind]

so basically the makers of starcraft 2 are no more. its basically core blizzard gone. now they are making three diablo games... wtf.

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They can't add mtx to StarCraft. Diablo on the other hand...

 

[dgrdsv]

Nothing in this sounds remotely exciting. Teams don't matter, management does, and with how Activision is managing what's left of Blizzard WC3R will soon become a good release, retroactively.

 

[BassForever]

Mixed feelings, a VV remake of D2 would be fantastic, but VV being absorbed into Blizzard can't end well

 

[julia crawford]

Stay the FUCK away from Diablo 2. They completely and retroactively ruined Warcraft 3.

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God I hate this man much.

 

[CorpseLight]

You know VV has been rumored to have been working on it for quite a bit, right? This isn't new information or like they just started working on it.

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If thats the case, it may be this year - yeah. From the article it made it seem like they essentially 'took over' all of Team 1's work.
I trust VV, I hope that Blizzard / Activision don't crunch them to death to get it out this year.

 

[KORNdog]

A diablo 2 remake you say. Consider me intrigued...just don't be like diablo 3 please. Kthnx.

 

[ILikeFeet]

so what does this mean about the alleged port of the Tony Hawk remake for switch? someone else will port it?

 

[BumperLips]

It's definitely going to be interesting to see how this turns out. Lots of variables go into D2 that might not turn out right in a remake. As some people said, combat is one of them. In the end, there are going to be polarizing opinions on it unlike THPS1/2. The game may very well feel as shifted from normal as Median XL, and that can be good or bad.

That said, I'm glad VV is doing it now. I'm just hoping to god that they don't touch or at least minimally tweak the item structure. It's the one good thing that I think has made D2 shine for so long (outliers like Enigma aside).

Maybe some inspiration from changes done in Path of Diablo and Project D2 mods would be nice as those have stayed fairly true to og with some nice tweaks towards underpowered stuff.

 

[Lukar]

so what does this mean about the alleged port of the Tony Hawk remake for switch? someone else will port it?

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If it happens, it'll probably be from someone else, yeah. It wouldn't be all that weird for Activision to be honest though; Vicarious Visions originally developed the Crash trilogy remaster, but it was Toys for Bob who ported it to Switch.

 

[medyej]

The megaton here for me is that the team behind SC2 was dissolved.. I mean what the hell? That would have been huge news if it came out when it happened. What a waste.

 

[dreamstation]

There's really no one I'd trust more to remake something right now than VV, so this is great news in that regard.

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Bluepoint says hi.

 

[Bastos]

Why would they remake Diablo 2 when Diablo 4 is supposed to be more in line with Diablo 2's darker tone....

Are they going to try for annual Diablo games or something?
Diablo mobile
Diablo 2 Remake
Diablo 4

Diablo isnt Call of Duty, its not going to work.

Click to shrink...

Because Diablo IV is not Diablo II and no game will ever replace it.

 

[Bathory]

Just so I understand this -

- Activision/Blizzard executives set up Team 1 to fail with Warcraft 3: Reforged with unrealistic deadlines and rushed production.
- Warcraft 3: Reforged releases and is unexpectedly a complete mess.
- Executives then demolish Team 1 and sends them elsewhere.
- Executives then take Vicarious Visions, an outstanding development team that could have been working on THPS 3 remake, and instead dissolves them into Blizzard to work on a Diablo 2 remake - which could have been handled well by Team 1 if they hadn't been set up to fail by management in the first place.

Do I have that right?

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Yep, exactly thys, the more you think about it, less sense makes and more angrier you get

 

[Serene]

Bluepoint says hi.

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They kind of do different things, in the sense I think Bluepoint takes more liberty with the source material where as VV is as 1:1 as they can be in most regards. I like both approaches a lot depending on the game but I wouldn't directly compare them. And even if I did I would say they have proven to be comparable to one another.

 

[Fisty]

Eh this sucks. Can't say I'm anywhere near as interested in Diablo 2 compared to the dozens of other Activision games that they could have done. VV was ace. I guess there's always Toys For Bob...

 

[Patazord]

I'm cool to play diablo 2 Remake until Diablo 4 is released.

 

[Tbm24]

Why would they remake Diablo 2 when Diablo 4 is supposed to be more in line with Diablo 2's darker tone....

Are they going to try for annual Diablo games or something?
Diablo mobile
Diablo 2 Remake
Diablo 4

Diablo isnt Call of Duty, its not going to work.

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure WoW classic taught Blizzard that you can have an audience for your latest title and a legacy one. There's 0 indication Blizzard is going for a CoD model. That's silly.

The megaton here for me is that the team behind SC2 was dissolved.. I mean what the hell? That would have been huge news if it came out when it happened. What a waste.

Click to shrink...

SC2 ended active development a good bit ago and pretty sure that was announced. That they restructured after the fact isn't the most surprising thing. Not like they canned them.

 

[Skunk]

Diablo 2 definitely needs more than just a graphical facelift. There are tons of well-documented bugs that cause things like the character info screen to show wildly incorrect information, skills to not work as described or intended, etc. Duriel's boss fight in the end of Act 2 is awful. There's balancing issues out the wazoo. It could also DESPERATELY use some minor QOL features.

I love the game dearly but I do hope that this is more than what they did for, say, the original Starcraft.

Click to shrink...

I love D2 but I agree wholeheartedly, it needs some really basic QoL things like auto-gold-pickup, some UI stuff etc.

 

[Cort]

Team 1 being dismantled is more evidence that JAB doesn't care about the Blizzard prestige or the history of Blizzard, to just completely kick their most renown team to the side like that is awful.

 

[Inugami]

Team 1 being dismantled is more evidence that JAB doesn't care about the Blizzard prestige or the history of Blizzard, to just completely kick their most renown team to the side like that is awful.

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There was a mass exodus of talent the last few years, I'm just as like to think this is as much Kotick actively trying to destroy the legacy than simply being indifferent to it. You know a narcissist like Bobby took it as a great personal insult when Morhaime announced his new company.