Blizzards once impeccable franchises have been taking some hits recently, most noticeably climaxing with the astounding issues that Warcraft 3 Reforged had when it finally released.
Every IP seems to have been continued to become more watered down as Blizzard continues development; Diablo 3 infamously launched with a real-money auction house, Overwatch stopped development entirely to focus on Overwatch 2, and Wolrd of Warcraft allegedly struggled with subscribers which resulted in them releasing WoW Classic to sustain subscribers.
Granted, there are those that must have been entirely happy with everything Blizzard has done in the past five years, but it’s safe to presume that they are the minority, all things considered. So as a French website is publishing news that Diablo 2 is being remastered, with a release happening sometime in 2020, owners of Diablo 2 might have the right of it with being absolutely horrified.
The entirety of this concern comes from how Blizzard remastered Warcraft 3 into Warcraft 3: Reforged. In the release, Blizzard removed the ability for people to play the classic title of Warcraft 3, instead forcing everyone to shift to a newer version that reflected the remaster.
Rumor: Diablo 2 remaster is happening, being called Diablo 2 Resurrected, and is being handled by Vicarious Visions https://t.co/3HKz0Wdui2 pic.twitter.com/LDdMKdjj1h
— ResetEra NT (@ResetEraNT) May 8, 2020
In this, competitive leagues were lost, clans were disbanded, and the many players who owned Warcraft 3 who were ‘upgraded’ couldn’t run the new version. To which Blizzard asked them to upgrade their PC to play the old game, or return their original title (along with the receipt) to the place of purchase. Which is hopefully still open, since Warcraft 3 originally released on July 3, 2002.
Likely the most egregious, however, was the user agreement clause that had an interesting tidbit slipped in there.
Anything created for Warcraft 3 Reforged became the complete property of Blizzard, with no room for discussions on rights or continuing development. Effectively meaning that if you happened to make something that the community liked enough, Blizzard would take control of it for monetization.
Who doesn’t want to work for free?
All of this is culminating like a brewing storm as rumors are circulating on Diablo 2 Resurrected coming out sometime this year. Many fans are creating back-ups of Diablo 2 and all of the mods that they’ve been using in an effort to thwart Blizzard removing the game from systems, shifting everyone to the ‘upgraded’ version.
This likely bodes poorly for the upcoming Diablo 4 as well, as users aren’t entirely sure what Blizzard has been doing recently. It’s likely that we could see many repeats of the ill-fated Warcraft 3 Reforged, from ownership of everything created to forcing players out of the beloved Diablo 2 copy. As far as remasters and Blizzard are concerned for the time being, it’s far better safe than sorry.
