Several days ago, a french site posted that Vicarious Visions is working on Diablo II: Resurrected. The rumor has been posted globally by major outlets like IGN, Forbes, Kotaku, CBR, Screenrant, PCGamer, and many others.

It is difficult to counter this as false, because the same french site started the rumor about Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 before Blizzard Entertainment announced them. So there is a high level of credibility to their latest Diablo II: Resurrected leak from “sources.”

On top of that, there is the fact that Vicarious Visions is a veteran game studios originally found in 1990. Vicarious Visions was acquired by Activision back in 2005. They have developed many remasters — including: Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero, Ultimate Spider-man, Skylanders: Superchargers and others.

More notorious and closer to Blizzard Entertainment… Vicarious Visions was responsible for porting Destiny 2 to PC which debuted within the Blizzard Launcher platform alongside other Blizzard games.

So it doesn’t sound too far-fetched that Blizzard Entertainment and Vicarious Visions would come together to work on this Diablo II remake.

I really have to stress out this is not fully a remake or a full remaster. At least until we get confirmation one way or the other. But not too long ago, one of the ex-Blizzard North founders revealed the Diablo II master file was fatally corrupted and they lost most of the assets. They managed to recover some of the lost files from copies some of the employees took home, but the ex-founder said it would be nearly impossible by Blizzard to make a Diablo II: remastered game.

So in that front you could argue that if Vicarious Visions is truly working on Diablo II: Resurrected — it is either a partial remake or a full remake rather than a full remaster.

That a Diablo II: Remastered is in Blizzard’s plans, that is not on debate. In 2017, Brian Sousa told Blizzplanet’s BlizzCon reporter Danny the following: “what we are focusing on now is actually the games that we know that are still been played, like Warcraft III and Diablo II . Getting those two into the modern Battle.net platform.” — watch the video interview.

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Curiously, the brand-new Community Development Lead Adam Fletcher tweeted something that can be considered nothing-to-see-here or masterful trolling (laughs).

What are the chances that two Blizzard employees are playing Diablo II in the middle of the Diablo II: Resurrected rumor-mill instead of Diablo III or Diablo 4?

Blizzard Esports Global Publishing Coordinator Eric Elliot responded to Adam Fletcher: “Bear Druid! Just started one as well last week and it is such a blast.”

Something that might shift fan’s trust on the potential leak of Diablo II: Resurrected is that Vicarious Visions just announced 18 hours ago they are currently working on remastering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2. Their slated release date is September 4, 2020.

So the development time table here has a collision course with the Diablo II: Resurrected “supposed” Q4 2020 release date.

However, that’s not much of an issue considering that Vicarious Visions has shipped over 100 games in 30 years, and they currently have 218 employees. So it is by no means a small studio.

So for argument’s sake, let’s compare this. Vicarious Visions shipped Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on June 30, 2017 for the PS4. That was 3 games simultaneously remastered by them. But it doesn’t end there. Vicarious Visions was still working on this same trilogy title for an extra year and released Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for the PC, Switch, Xbox One on June 29, 2018.

What is the point I want you to observe and tinker with? At the very same time Vicarious Visions was working on Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for all those game platforms, they shipped the Destiny 2 PC version onto the Blizzard Launcher platform on October 24, 2017.

Therefore, don’t get too distracted by the fact that Vicarious Visions just announced the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 remaster for September 4, 2020. They can still be working incog— err — no-longer-incognito on Diablo II: Resurrected.

Take a look at the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Vicarious Visions Reveal video, and their potential to turn Diablo II into a 4K game.

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