The Original Diablo Is Now Up for Sale on GoG

I remember the first time I heard about Diablo. The game had actually already been ought for a year, but I and my college-age friends didn’t hear about it until the beginning of 1997. Most of our college campus shut down in January for Winter Term, but freshman were required to stay on campus to complete a course of our choosing. I don’t remember what I studied. I do remember Diablo.

And last I checked, Diablo is made by Blizzard.

That’s why it’s more than a little odd to see Diablo returning to the screen in all its pixelated glory on GoG. Not that there’s anything wrong with GoG — in fact, up until Epic launched its own game store earlier this year, GoG was the closest thing in existence to a Steam competitor. But it’s a little odd to see Blizzard, which owns its own digital distribution service, ponying up to put one of its own games on a competitor’s storefront.

GoG writes:

Travelers looking for the authentic Diablo experience can play the game as it was in 1996, with period-appropriate 20fps SVGA graphics, and the ability to matchmake through the classic version of Blizzard’s Battle.net online-gaming service.

For those wanting something a bit more modern, Blizzard and GOG.COM have collaborated on an updated version of the game tuned for today’s gaming PCs, which includes out-of-the-box Windows 10 compatibility, a host of bug fixes and high-resolution support.

Diablo III was fun — unlike some fans of the series, I didn’t necessarily mind the changes Blizzard made to how skills worked or the power unlock system as opposed to Diablo and Diablo II’s more classic roots in traditional RPGs — but it didn’t grab me quite as tightly as the first two games, possibly because I didn’t have weeks to spend crawling around through the ancient catacombs and twisted ruins of the ancient, unhallowed Cathedral. That hellish place spawned nightmares that haunt my dreams to this day, adventurer…

Blizzard has been revisiting its previous titles with remasters and remakes in the past few years. Starcraft Remastered was well-received and Warcraft III: Reforged is on the way as well. Diablo hasn’t been targeted for any such remastering that we’re aware of — the only Diablo-related news to come out of Blizzcon last year was the emphatically not-well-received mobile game, Diablo Immortal. Releasing Diablo on GoG is an interesting start. Any news of a “new” Diablo II?

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