Take “stamina.” Stamina is emphatically not fun. Taking out certain mechanics-even unpopular ones-can send others collapsing Jenga-style. Courtesy of Blizzardįorced friction wasn’t the only philosophy behind keeping in frustrating systems. “We’re not really here to fix Diablo II,” says Rob Gallerani, Diablo II: Resurrected’s principal designer. The term for this design strategy is “forced friction.” The extra identification step might be annoying, but it also gives players a chance to relive the thrill of discovery: once when they find a cool dagger, then again when they learn how powerful it actually is. No, players would respond, and why would I do that? Don’t I have infinite arrows? “Everything in the game is very tangible,” says Gallerani. Have you equipped a quiver of arrows? devs asked.

Similarly, during Diablo II: Resurrected’s beta, Vicarious Visions devs received messages from players asking why they couldn’t use their bow and arrow. In Diablo II: Resurrected, a player might not know the stats associated with a rare dagger until they find a Scroll of Identify and manually apply it to the weapon. It’s basically unheard-of in modern games to need an item to identify another item.

Diablo II: Resurrected would remind players about how games used to be, or ideally teach gamers who weren’t alive in 2000 what they’ve been missing.

Gallerani said it was a calculated decision to keep things opaque. Making a game like Diablo II accessible to newer players is a tall order.

Diablo 2 resurrected loot changes