It is now official. Diablo II: Resurrected technical alpha begins in April 8 in the United States, and April 9 in South Korea. This tech alpha test will only have Act I and II, and limited to three classes: Barbarian, Amazon, and Sorceress. The game supports Ultra High Definition 4K (2160p) graphics and controller in this test.
Tech Alpha will last from April 8 until April 12, but fret not. There will be multiple rounds of tests.
MrMesli sent me a link to a Inven.co.kr article that says the South Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee approved Diablo II: Resurrected tech alpha to be tested from April 9 – 13. Only testers above age 18 can register. The approval allows a max of 19,999 testers.
Update: Flam744 reports the South Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee removed the listing. I wasn’t able to find this entry either, but Inven.co.kr got a screenshot (below).
An encrypted Diablo II: Resurrected Internal Alpha build was deployed today in the Battle.net Launcher — as shown at BlizzTracker.
RedOctober, also informed me DiabloNext’s Gayardos posted the akamai CDN URL used by Blizzard Entertainment in the latest build.
Fergusson: Hey, everyone. I’m Rod Ferguson, executive producer for the Diablo Franchise, and welcome to the Diablo Q&A. I’m joined today by three of my favorite Diablo designers. We have Luis Barriga, who has forbade me to roll my R’s when trying to say his name. I feel really bad about myself, but he’s the Game Director for Diablo 4.
We have Wyatt Chang, who is the Lead Designer for Diablo Immortal; and Rob Gallerani who is the Principal Designer for Vicarious Visions who works on Diablo II: Resurrected.
The BlizzConline 2021: Diablo II: Resurrected Press Q&A was held privately over ZOOM on Friday, February 19 at 8pm EST.
The event was moderated by Eddiemae from TriplePoint. In attendance were Robert Gallerani (principal designer at Vicarious Visions) and Matthew Cederquist (game producer at Blizzard Entertainment).
Vicarious Visions posted a new job opening for a Cinematic Layout Artist. They specify requirement for Blizzard familiarity. The highlights that caught my eye indicate they might be in post-production. That usually means they are wrapping up final stages.
Vicarious Visions is looking for a Cinematic Layout Artist. Specifically asks:
New head of Vicarious Visions Simon Ebejer has replaced Jennifer Oneal (new EVP of development at Blizzard Entertainment). Simon Ebejer talked with The Daily Gazette about the recent merger.
Here are some snippets that come to attention from the article:
GameIndustry.Biz recently posted the breaking news that Vicarious Visions had merged into Blizzard Entertainment. Now the former head of Vicarious Visions posted a message in Linkedin confirming the merge and her new position as executive vice-president of development at Blizzard Entertainment.
Her Linkedin profile displays she joined the EVP role in January 2021.
Back in June 2020, RandomMan00 shared in Reddit a special behavior in the diablo2.blizzard.com URL. In the past, the address resolved into a “Server Not Found” error. Then, the URL resolved into Error 403, which according to the Amazon AWS support site means the page is behind the AWS Firewall, blocking access to public view.
You don’t block it behind a Firewall for nothing. Only if you are working on content.
Here is a move no one saw coming. Vicarious Visions — owned by Activision since 2005 — has now merged with Blizzard Entertainment to exclusively focus on the Legacy division.
