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Hahahah. Yep. Their whole pitch on 4 seemed to be "look we're making it HARDCORE again!", which the trailer demo'd to mean "LOTS OF GORE + Marvel movie humor".

Hahahah. Yep. Their whole pitch on 4 seemed to be "look we're making it HARDCORE again!", which the trailer demo'd to mean "LOTS OF GORE + Marvel movie humor". It's hard to even articulate what made D1 and D2 as "gritty" as they seem to this day, but it involves politically incorrect and demographically-exclusionary themes that people of a whole different generation made for a PC market that was regarded as "for adults" (kids were supposed to be in the console ghetto). It's an entirely different world, and Blizzard is a bloated zombie whaling ship. Also, the genres they're still trying to squeeze money out of (except for Overwatch's) are very outdated: non-4X basic RTS, isometric RPG, MMO. One of those is okay on a phone, but these are all relics of a bygone age of technical limitations (in MMOs' case, then-recently-conquered bandwidth limitations that made a shitty game format interesting because playing with many people was novel at the time).

unethical_ban 4y ago
I don't see how D2 is politically incorrect or demographically exclusionary. Especially given there wasn't an article about a tweet from someone mad about the remaster.
- grog454 4y ago
  A Gheed quote: "You're a brave soul! I'd sooner thrust my sacred scepter into the foulest, carbuncular trull than set one boot into that cave." https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Gheed https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Gheed Don't really know if that's considered PC but I suspect there are worse examples that I can't recall well enough to articulate. Another possible example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo_2_Resurrected/comments/pchu8e/act_2_harem_girls/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo_2_Resurrected/comments/pchu8...
  - Teever 4y ago
    Never once in my life did I ever connect 'political correctness' to the Diablo franchise. I just clicked on skeletons until they died and then picked up the shiny things they dropped over and over. You're really overthinking the game man.
    - grog454 4y ago
      I guess thinking isn't encouraged in the game in general, so your comment makes sense. The parent (like you) didn't see how D2 could be interpreted as politically incorrect. The parent's parent did. I was trying to bridge the gap.
    - BearOso 4y ago
      From D2 to D3 they completely tore out the Christian mythology and association with the existing legends. Things became kid-friendly. Pentagrams were changed to imprecise scribbles in circles. Angels became "angels" in name only, with a completely new origin story. They removed any concept that anybody was acting contrary to the Christian God, and just made one of the angels the king of the universe. I'm won't go into the Tyrael fiasco. Basically, expansion of made-up lore and a loss of mystique about connections to the real world ruined the sense of being in an unwieldy no-hope situation. The story instead felt like it was written by a teenager with a power fantasy.
- stevenwoo 4y ago
  I vaguely remember the character lead coming up with a slightly more salacious version of the Amazon initially and it was toned down with a skirt and more clothing I think, we only had one woman on staff at that time, also have a very hazy recollection that the guys all asked their wives for their opinion.
SantalBlush 4y ago
Those game formats still work fine. Hades is an isometric action-RPG that is hugely popular, for example. Blizzard games are just bad now because Blizzard lost its creativity a long time ago. It's basically an entirely different company than it once was.
WaxProlix 4y ago
> D1 and D2 ... involve politically incorrect and demographically-exclusionary themes Can you elaborate on this at all? I played both on release and while I can think of a lot of gaps between the originals (1+2+LoD) and more modern takes, those differences don't sound similar to what you're thinking of.
barrysteve 4y ago
>Also, the genres they're still trying to squeeze money out of (except for Overwatch's) are very outdated: non-4X basic RTS If you're talking about Starcraft 2 as being a "basic" RTS, it's not the same game it was at launch in 2010. There's so much content for it with a whole bunch of new Co-op commanders and the Arcade custom modes made by the community are stacking so many mechanics on top of each other it actually gets a bit too much sometimes. -Infinite upgrades and blasting out the vanilla sc2 game mechanics by upgrading the abilities so many times that it breaks the gameplay, with added zombies which are usually jacked up to insane difficulty, on a tiny rush map with extra income. -Hero maps that have a good 12-13 systems of powering up the hero. -Some chill out maps that have you memorizing so many different unit combinations that automatically send in waves across the map and having to finely interpret massive unit battles with different many units and abilities and weekly changing bonuses clashing all at once. There's many more. Totally agree Blizzard is dead in the water. The old "gritty" vibe in D2 really hinged on being able to unearth core, adult, western values and challenge them with scary demons. It was presented the evil on such a self-evident surface level too, it was great, you didn't have to interpret fine intricate characters, it just presented hateable figures to wrestle with. The narrative kept moving and getting bigger as you got deeper into the "East". The pixelated look was so good. Like you could pick out individual spots on the map and the resolution was small enough that you could see the exact start and end to most game mechanics and animations. You could do pixel-perfect moves relatively easily and understand the world pieces intuitively, mostly from just looking at it. The late 90s and early 2000s had that sand-like pixelated look to all the monitors and low-res video games. CRTs helped blur it out, but you could still appreciate the grainy-ness and feel like you were in something a bit more concrete and grounded cause you could almost count the pixels on 640x480 (lol). Ah nostalghia, thanks for the trip!
- planarhobbit 4y ago
  > The narrative kept moving and getting bigger as you got deeper into the "East". The soundtrack did an amazing job to cement the movement of narrative. Act 2 in particular, because it’s the first time in the game (from Diablo 1 perspective) that we see a completely different environment within the game. An all around work of art.
poisonborz 4y ago
> It's hard to even articulate what made D1 and D2 as "gritty" as they seem to this day Being classic gothic horrors. It had very minimal story, strong visuals and music, and minimal dialogue that didn't gave away too much which made you imagine. Its roots lied in books with engraved illustrations, rather than other products of the modern entertainment industry. This was a common trait of early RPG games.
- philistine 4y ago
  Diablo 2 was the product of low polygon models transformed into pixels. They could correct their tiles manually, since the pixel count was so low. Diablo 3 was a high-resolution affair, through and through, which meant it relied on textures much more. It also kept the late Blizzard trick of making everything a bit cartoony to emulate their biggest success, World of Warcraft.
planarhobbit 4y ago
> it involves politically incorrect and demographically-exclusionary themes Back when we could have blockbuster games with worldbuilding/fantasy narratives that didn’t involve shoehorning whatever currently trendy topics are flying about. See also: baldurs gate remaster

unethical_ban 4y ago

I don't see how D2 is politically incorrect or demographically exclusionary. Especially given there wasn't an article about a tweet from someone mad about the remaster.

grog454 4y ago
A Gheed quote: "You're a brave soul! I'd sooner thrust my sacred scepter into the foulest, carbuncular trull than set one boot into that cave." https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Gheed https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Gheed Don't really know if that's considered PC but I suspect there are worse examples that I can't recall well enough to articulate. Another possible example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo_2_Resurrected/comments/pchu8e/act_2_harem_girls/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo_2_Resurrected/comments/pchu8...
- Teever 4y ago
  Never once in my life did I ever connect 'political correctness' to the Diablo franchise. I just clicked on skeletons until they died and then picked up the shiny things they dropped over and over. You're really overthinking the game man.
  - grog454 4y ago
    I guess thinking isn't encouraged in the game in general, so your comment makes sense. The parent (like you) didn't see how D2 could be interpreted as politically incorrect. The parent's parent did. I was trying to bridge the gap.
  - BearOso 4y ago
    From D2 to D3 they completely tore out the Christian mythology and association with the existing legends. Things became kid-friendly. Pentagrams were changed to imprecise scribbles in circles. Angels became "angels" in name only, with a completely new origin story. They removed any concept that anybody was acting contrary to the Christian God, and just made one of the angels the king of the universe. I'm won't go into the Tyrael fiasco. Basically, expansion of made-up lore and a loss of mystique about connections to the real world ruined the sense of being in an unwieldy no-hope situation. The story instead felt like it was written by a teenager with a power fantasy.
stevenwoo 4y ago
I vaguely remember the character lead coming up with a slightly more salacious version of the Amazon initially and it was toned down with a skirt and more clothing I think, we only had one woman on staff at that time, also have a very hazy recollection that the guys all asked their wives for their opinion.

SantalBlush 4y ago

Those game formats still work fine. Hades is an isometric action-RPG that is hugely popular, for example. Blizzard games are just bad now because Blizzard lost its creativity a long time ago. It's basically an entirely different company than it once was.

WaxProlix 4y ago

> D1 and D2 ... involve politically incorrect and demographically-exclusionary themes Can you elaborate on this at all? I played both on release and while I can think of a lot of gaps between the originals (1+2+LoD) and more modern takes, those differences don't sound similar to what you're thinking of.

barrysteve 4y ago

>Also, the genres they're still trying to squeeze money out of (except for Overwatch's) are very outdated: non-4X basic RTS If you're talking about Starcraft 2 as being a "basic" RTS, it's not the same game it was at launch in 2010. There's so much content for it with a whole bunch of new Co-op commanders and the Arcade custom modes made by the community are stacking so many mechanics on top of each other it actually gets a bit too much sometimes. -Infinite upgrades and blasting out the vanilla sc2 game mechanics by upgrading the abilities so many times that it breaks the gameplay, with added zombies which are usually jacked up to insane difficulty, on a tiny rush map with extra income. -Hero maps that have a good 12-13 systems of powering up the hero. -Some chill out maps that have you memorizing so many different unit combinations that automatically send in waves across the map and having to finely interpret massive unit battles with different many units and abilities and weekly changing bonuses clashing all at once. There's many more. Totally agree Blizzard is dead in the water. The old "gritty" vibe in D2 really hinged on being able to unearth core, adult, western values and challenge them with scary demons. It was presented the evil on such a self-evident surface level too, it was great, you didn't have to interpret fine intricate characters, it just presented hateable figures to wrestle with. The narrative kept moving and getting bigger as you got deeper into the "East". The pixelated look was so good. Like you could pick out individual spots on the map and the resolution was small enough that you could see the exact start and end to most game mechanics and animations. You could do pixel-perfect moves relatively easily and understand the world pieces intuitively, mostly from just looking at it. The late 90s and early 2000s had that sand-like pixelated look to all the monitors and low-res video games. CRTs helped blur it out, but you could still appreciate the grainy-ness and feel like you were in something a bit more concrete and grounded cause you could almost count the pixels on 640x480 (lol). Ah nostalghia, thanks for the trip!

planarhobbit 4y ago
> The narrative kept moving and getting bigger as you got deeper into the "East". The soundtrack did an amazing job to cement the movement of narrative. Act 2 in particular, because it’s the first time in the game (from Diablo 1 perspective) that we see a completely different environment within the game. An all around work of art.

poisonborz 4y ago

> It's hard to even articulate what made D1 and D2 as "gritty" as they seem to this day Being classic gothic horrors. It had very minimal story, strong visuals and music, and minimal dialogue that didn't gave away too much which made you imagine. Its roots lied in books with engraved illustrations, rather than other products of the modern entertainment industry. This was a common trait of early RPG games.

philistine 4y ago
Diablo 2 was the product of low polygon models transformed into pixels. They could correct their tiles manually, since the pixel count was so low. Diablo 3 was a high-resolution affair, through and through, which meant it relied on textures much more. It also kept the late Blizzard trick of making everything a bit cartoony to emulate their biggest success, World of Warcraft.

planarhobbit 4y ago

> it involves politically incorrect and demographically-exclusionary themes Back when we could have blockbuster games with worldbuilding/fantasy narratives that didn’t involve shoehorning whatever currently trendy topics are flying about. See also: baldurs gate remaster