In the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels the chapter on the debacle of Diablo 3's launch tells the story of the way a Blizzard developer played the game for D2R Items literally hundreds of hours before they found a piece of legendary loot. When the light that was orange finally appeared from a random player, the developer walked up to the loot only to realize that his class could not even utilize it. The loot system was so fundamentally flawed that the excitement in grinding away for an hour, which was then followed by relief of actually receiving something of value, was broken.

This was later changed to the point that you could only get certain loot levels that fit your particular class, and the frequency at which early-game legendary items were dropped was up. Also, even though the legendary items that you could get didn't break the game it was still a feeling that you'd sometimes get a little bit of dopamine in order to keep you on the hook.

When Diablo 2 Resurrected gets that right and offers a similar loot game mechanic to Loot2.0 in Diablo 3, then we're already concerned about how much time we'll have to be spending playing. Diablo 3's disaster is arguably the best event that could have occurred to the franchise on an ongoing basis. If you mix this and the Immortal controversy, it appears like Blizzard is able to provide a straightforward plan of how to avoid potholes should it want to remain at the top of the list of its the most faithful players.

The Diablo community is open about the things they don't like and has been through the lifespan of Diablo 3, so we're hopeful that Blizzard will take this feedback from players fortunate enough to have played large parts of the game in the pre-release phase. We'd like to bet Blizzard isn't thrilled by the torrent of leaked footage that has been surfacing after one of these tests.

One feature that is part of Diablo 3 that is confirmed that it will be returning is the limited-time Seasons. They're basically post-game pieces of content that alter the way legendary items work and also remix the game's content of the game base which adds replayability to a game that's already replayable. Seasons were available for a substantial amount of time in Diablo 3, so we're hopeful that they'll become a huge focus in Diablo 2 Resurrected.

That seasonal approach can also set Diablo 2 Resurrected up to be another compelling Game Pass game, should the merger ultimately end. A game like Diablo with its solid gameplay is perfect for a service designed for gamers to return to online games following a few months. However, with the game set for release in June and the battle over Activision's future Activision ongoing, this is one title that's unlikely to get Game Pass treatment on day one. Game Pass treatment on day one, unless a major event alters.

If we were to bet we'd say that the idea to achieve with Diablo 2 Resurrected is that, when the game is finally released players from the cheap D2R Ladder Items community that were outraged in the past, and quite rightly, about Diablo Immortal are able to sit back and look around and think "oh yeah, this is Diablo."