![]() Then Modernize Diablo with the DevilutionX Overhaul But I hope you won't stop there because it's unbelievably easy to modernize Diablo for a vastly better player experience. ![]() You could download Diablo from GOG and stop there, enjoying the GOG Diablo launcher, the improvements, and the bundled Hellfire expansion. (In the next section, we'll discuss how to play those hidden classes without modifying any files.) Although Blizzard restricted the Sierra developers from including more than one additional class in Hellfire, a Bard and Barbarian class is tucked away in the code. It also introduces the Monk character class, which rounds out the basic Diablo roster of Warrior, Rogue, and Sorcerer. The expansion pack includes two new dungeons, a handful of additional quests, extra game items, a bigger and tougher final boss, and some interface improvements. (You can read more about this on the Diablo Wiki.) Thus Hellfire became an official but non-canonical addition to the Diablo universe. But Sierra and Blizzard developers met and agreed on how the expansion should take shape and what the limitations were out of respect for the Diablo II development arc. It seems almost incomprehensible in the modern game and copyright climate for one publisher to release an expansion pack for another publisher's best-selling intellectual property (even with the backstory about the parent company calling the shots). While Blizzard had strong opinions about where its energy should be focused, CUC executives didn't want to leave the runaway success of Diablo on the table while waiting for an entirely new second game. But at the time, Blizzard and Sierra were both owned, at the time, by an umbrella company Comp-U-Card Internationa (CUC). How did this cross-development-studio expansion come to be? Blizzard had opted to focus on Diablo II, rather than an expansion pack for Diablo. Hellfire is a non-canonical expansion pack to the original Diablo game created by programmers at Synergistic Software, a division of the game industry titan Sierra Entertainment, in November of 1997. Back in 2019, GOG reached an agreement with Blizzard to republish Diablo as part of its vast library of, well, good old games.įor a very reasonable $9.99, you can pick up a copy of Diablo that includes the base game, the wildly popular expansion Hellfire, and some bug fixes and support for modern screen resolutions.Ī quick word on Hellfire because it's not just a great add-on, but it has an interesting story too. Instead of fussing with old CD-ROMs, ancient DRM, and scrounging the backwater of the internet for long abandoned patches, there is a much simpler way to play Diablo on a modern PC. Instead, we'll use an updated copy of Diablo courtesy of Good Old Games (GOG.com) and then supercharge it with a really awesome open-source project. You'll need to get the data off the CD-ROM, install it in compatibility mode, use a no-cd crack, patch the game (Blizzard still has the last 2001-era Diablo patch available on its FTP server), and then from there, you'll have to patch and mod it just to get anywhere near where we're going to start the process below.ĭespite having a dusty copy of Diablo around here somewhere, I skipped that whole process, and you should too. And in 2021, Blizzard released a completely remastered version of Diablo II, Diablo II: Resurrected, which brought the 2000-era classic into the modern age. Even the expansions like Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (2001) and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (2014) and Rise of the Necromancer (2017) were best-sellers. The original spawned a successful franchise that includes Diablo II (2000), Diablo III (2012), Diablo IV (2023), and a mobile game, Diablo Immortal (2022). Within two years, it had sold two million copies. The title was pre-ordered nearly half a million times leading up to the January release and then went on to sell more than a million copies by the end of the year. Why Play Diablo Now?ĭiablo was first released in January 1997 by Blizzard Entertainment but was a runaway best-seller even before it hit the shelves. Better yet, you can play it with modern enhancements, previously unplayable characters, and more. ![]() With the arrival of Diablo IV just around the corner, there is no better time to blow the dust off the first Diablo game to experience the original story.
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