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Season 24: Ethereal Memory

Season 24 honors the legacy of Diablo II by adding Ethereal Items into the game for the duration of the season. Ethereal items are a new weapon type that have a powerful set of affixes, a random class weapon legendary power, and a random class passive power. Each class has three Ethereal items available to them, and collecting all 21 will permanently unlock the ability to transmogrify weapons to the new Ethereal looks.

• Ethereals are account bound and can only be dropped by monsters, chests, and destructibles, but do not require your character to be level 70 to drop. Ethereals cannot be acquired through Kanai's Cube or from Kadala.
• Ethereal rarity drop rate is set between Ancient and Primal items.
• There are 3 unique Ethereals per class. Each Ethereal has fixed affixes and rolls one random Legendary Weapon power and one random Class Passive Skill.
• Only one Ethereal can be equipped at a time.
• Ethereals ignore item durability loss.
• Legendary Powers and Class Passive Skills rolled on Ethereals do not stack with the same power equipped through Kanai's Cube, Items or Skills.
• Ethereals cannot be Enchanted, Transmogrified, Dyed, Reforged, or traded.
• Ethereals can be augmented.
• Collecting all 21 Ethereals during Season 24 will reward players with the Feat of Strength, Ethereal Recollection. Players who accomplish this will have all Ethereal transmogrify options available for future seasonal and non-seasonal play. 
• Ethereals only drop in Seasonal play, and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.

Season 24 begins on Friday, July 23rd at 5:00pm in each region. Season 24 goes live on all Consoles world wide at 5:00pm PDT, the same time as PC in North America. For timezone conversion, visit this site!

Table of Contents

• Season 24: The Disciples of Sanctuary
• Discord Server
• Haedrig's Gift & Seasonal Rewards
• Seasonal Conquests
• Season 24 Starter Guides
• Level With A Cause
• Challenge Rift Week 197
• Patch 2.7.1 Notes

 DiabloFans Discord

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If you don't use Discord you're missing out, but you can also find people to play with by using our forums! 

 Haedrig's Gift & Seasonal Rewards

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Seasonal Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely!

The set you will receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 24:

• Barbarian – Immortal King's Call
  
• Crusader – Seeker of the Light
  
• Demon Hunter – Natalya's Vengeance
  
• Monk – Uliana's Stratagem
  
• Necromancer – Trag'Oul's Avatar
  
• Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
  
• Wizard – Vyr's Amazing Arcana
  

In Season 17, Blizzard began re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. This means that for Season 24, awards originally available from Season 12 are returning to the Season Journey.

Blizzard is continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as was introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic rewards for those who complete the entirety of the Season Journey. These rewards will be the Terror Resurrected Portrait pet and the Lesser Mummy Pet.

 Seasonal Conquests

 Want to prepare your Conquests plans for Season 24? Here are all the conquests you'll face this season!

• On A Good Day & I Can't Stop
  
• Curses! & Stars Align
  
• Boss Mode & Worlds Apart
  
• The Thrill & Super Human
  
• Years of War & Dynasty

 Season 24 Starter Guides

Any players looking to level quickly and get the best start to Season 24 should browse the selection of starter guides from various content creators below! If you're looking for a level 1 blood shard gambling guide, AlexRaEU previously posted a comprehensive spreadsheet on the r/Diablo Subreddit! It should be noted that Ethereal Items can be dropped for characters who are not yet level 70, and getting one while leveling has the potential to greatly increase leveling speeds.

Ultimate Seasonal Starter Guide:

Class Starter Guides From Bluddshed:

• Barbarian
• Crusader
• Demon Hunter
• Monk
• Necromancer
• Witch Doctor
• Wizard

Level With A Cause

Level With A Cause (#LWAC), a coalition of streamers from the Diablo 3 community, will be uniting once again for a charity fundraising event during the first three days of the Season 24 opening weekend in Diablo 3. This marks the team’s 13th event over the last few years. Several Diablo 3 community members will be holding live-streams during this weekend in support of this charity drive. During these live-streams, viewers will be able to donate to the SaveTheChildren charity organization. 

Level With A Cause was founded prior to the start of Season 11 of Diablo 3 and has been a mainstay of the opening weekend of each new season since that time. The LWAC team has raised over $86,000 to date for deserving charities such as Save The Children, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Take This. LWAC hopes to continue to grow and raise even more money for charities in the future. If you are a streamer looking to participate, more info can be found on the LWAC website. As a viewer, you can simply search for LWAC within stream titles on Twitch during the July 23rd to 25th event.

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In the U.S. and around the world, Save The Children gives children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, they are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. They do whatever it takes to save children, transforming their lives and the future we share.

You can donate to the Level With a Cause charity event here!

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Challenge Rift - Week 213

Challenge Rift Week 213 is live! Because Season 24 begins this Friday, we advise that you DO NOT complete the challenge rift until after you've made your seasonal character! This week the Challenge Rift features three different Barbarian builds! If you are curious how Challenge Rift builds are chosen each week, you can view this official blog post!

Patch 2.7.1 Changes

Patch 2.7.1 features several balance changes, new Ethereal weapons for the duration of Season 24, a rework of the Inna's set, and skill changes to Mystic Ally and Mirror Image!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

 

Season 24 will begin on July 23, at 5PM (PDT/CEST/KST) shortly after our next Diablo III update. Read on to learn more about the season theme and balance changes coming in Patch 2.7.1. We are expecting this update to be released on July 20.

 

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Table of Contents

• Season Theme
• Season Cosmetic Rewards
• Season Journey Rewards
• Season Conquests
• Haedrig's Gifts
• Patch Notes
  • Seasons
  • Items
  • Bug Fixes

 

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New Season Theme

As the Nephalem reflect on Sanctuary's history, instruments of power from a bygone era resurface. These ethereal memories will grant those persistent enough to search for them unimaginable power. Legends of the past will manifest once more in the present, and you must decide how to best use these gifts—for ethereal power is fugacious by nature, and will soon return to being no more than a myth.

 

Diablo II left us with fond memories when it released more than 20 years ago, and with Diablo® II: Resurrected^TM launching in September 2021, we’d like to introduce a seasonal theme to honor that legacy. For this seasonal theme, we were inspired to reimagine how Ethereal items could manifest in Diablo III, with 21 iconic weapons from Diablo II making a return. In Season 24, Ethereals are rare, powerful, and fleeting items.

 

 

Players who pre-purchase Diablo II: Resurrected before it launches on Sept 23, 2021 will immediately unlock the Heritage of Arreat transmog, the Diablo II-themed Barbarian transmog set, in Diablo III on July 20 once Patch 2.7.1 goes live. For more details, click here.

 

 

With the release of Patch 2.7.1, console players will now be able to immediately unlock the Mephisto pet and the Hatred’s Grasp wings when they pre-order the Diablo Prime Evil Collection on Xbox or PlayStation.

 

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Seasonal Cosmetic Rewards

Beginning with Season 17, we began reintroducing previous rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around. For Season 24, this means awards originally available from Season 12 are returning. In addition to the Chest and Gloves slots of the exclusive Conqueror Set, portraits themed around the High Heavens will be available. Those who enjoy collecting cosmetic wings will also be pleased to see the return of Fiacla-Géar, which gives your character a distinctly angelic look.

 

 

However, we know it’s nice to have something new to aim for if you’ve participated in previous Seasons. We’re continuing to provide new End of Journey rewards as introduced in Season 17, with two new cosmetic ones for those who complete the entirety of the Season journey. Relive Ethereal Memory and complete the Season 24 Guardian Journey to earn the Terror Resurrected Portrait and the Lesser Mummy Pet.

 

 

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Season Journey Rewards

If you’ve been playing the past few Seasons diligently and reached Conqueror in the Season Journey each time, you’ve accrued a few extra stash tabs. Players who have not yet earned a total of four stash tabs via the Season Journey can still unlock an additional one by completing the following tasks at the Conqueror tier:

• Complete a Torment XIII Rift in under 5 minutes
• Complete Greater Rift 60 solo
• Kill Greed on Torment XIII
• Kill Queen Araneae on Torment XIII in under 30 seconds
• Reforge a Legendary or Set item
• Augment an Ancient item with a Level 50 or greater Legendary Gem
• Level three Legendary Gems to 55
• Complete two Conquests

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Seasonal Conquests

Speaking of Conquests, we’re rotating those, too! Love going fast while killing things? Boss Mode and Worlds Apart will be making a return. On A Good Day and I Can’t Stop are also available, if leveling Legendary Gems is more your thing. If you’d rather max out your kill count with Cursed Chests, Curses! and Stars Align will be right up your alley. Those who enjoy seeing how far they can go without Set Items will get a kick out of The Thrill and Super Human. Finally, if you’re keen to show off your mastery of various Class Sets, Years of War and Dynasty will be available for you to attempt once more.

 

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Haedrig’s Gift

Finally, the Class Sets rewarded for completing certain chapters in the Season Journey courtesy of Haedrig’s Gift have rotated once more. We’ve listed the available Sets below. For those new to Seasons, here’s how it works:

 

Completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will reward you with three of Haedrig’s Gifts. These contain a few pieces from one of your Class Sets. Players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore, so choose wisely! The set you receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character. Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 24:

 

• Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
• Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
• Crusader – Seeker of the Light
• Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing  Arcana
• Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
• Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
• Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar

 

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Patch Notes

Below you will find the patch notes for the upcoming update for Diablo III, Patch 2.7.1

 

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PATCH 2.7.1

Table of Contents:

• Seasons
• Items
• Bug Fixes and Misc Updates

Note: All changes apply to all versions of Diablo III, including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC unless otherwise indicated.

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Patch Notes

Below you will find the patch notes for the upcoming update for Diablo III, Patch 2.7.1.

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Seasons

Season 24 introduces Ethereals, a new weapon-type that players will be able to acquire and hunt for in their upcoming seasonal journey. Ethereals will roll a powerful set of affixes, a random Class Weapon Legendary Power and a random Class Passive Power. Ethereals will have unique icons, names, item types, and sounds originally found in Diablo II. For additional details on Ethereals, check out the list below:

• Ethereals are account bound and can only be dropped by monsters, chests, and destructibles, but do not require your character to be level 70 to drop. Ethereals cannot be acquired through Kanai's Cube or from Kadala.
• Ethereal rarity drop rate is set between Ancient and Primal items.
• There are 3 unique Ethereals per class. Each Ethereal has fixed affixes and rolls one random Legendary Weapon power and one random Class Passive Skill.
• Only one Ethereal can be equipped at a time.
• Ethereals ignore item durability loss.
• Legendary Powers and Class Passive Skills rolled on Ethereals do not stack with the same power equipped through Kanai's Cube, Items or Skills.
• Ethereals cannot be Enchanted, Transmogrified, Dyed, Reforged, or traded.
• Ethereals can be augmented.
• Collecting all 21 Ethereals during Season 24 will reward players with the Feat of Strength, Ethereal Recollection. Players who accomplish this will have all Ethereal transmogrify options available for future seasonal and non-seasonal play. 
• Ethereals only drop in Seasonal play, and will not transfer to your non-seasonal character when the season ends.

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Items

General

• Monk | Skill Change:
  • Mystic Ally - Fire Ally: Now splits into 2 splits instead of 5, but now all Fire Allies can split. Damage radius slightly increased and damage increased from 480% to 1920% weapon damage.
  • Mystic Ally - Fire Ally: Improved Fire Ally AI so Allies now explode more consistently.
  • Mystic Ally - Earth Ally: Damage increased from 380% to 4500% weapon damage.
  • Rabid Strike: Spirit spenders that teleport you while Epiphany is active are also mimicked on a nearby target with 350-450% increased damage for free.
• Wizard | Skill Change:
  • Mirror Image: ​Mirror Image icon now displays a counter to display how many Mirror Images are active.

Item Changes

• Inna's Mantra 4-Piece Set: Gain the base effect of all four Mantras at all times. You gain 5% damage reduction for each Mystic Ally you have out. Your Mystic Allies no longer take damage.
• Inna's Mantra 6-Piece Set: Gain the passive abilities of the five runed Mystic Allies at all times. Attacking enemies creates your chosen Mystic Ally that lasts 15 seconds, up to 10 Mystic Allies. The damage of your Mystic Allies is increased by 3000% for each Mystic Ally you have out.
• The Crudest Boots: Mystic Ally summons two Mystic Allies that fight by your side. They deal 150% to 200% increased damage and are able to attack with their active forms longer.
• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150% to 200% increased damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds. Split Fire Allies gain 5 times this bonus.

 

• Aegis of Valor 2-Piece Set: Attacking with Fists of the Heavens empowers you, allowing Heaven's Fury to deal 125% increased damage for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Masquerade of the Burning Carnival 6-Piece Set: Bone Spear cast by you and your Simulacrums deals 6000% increased damage.

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Bug Fixes

• Monk Fixes
  • All Mystic Allies and their abilities now benefit from +Mystic Ally Damage.
  • Fixed a bug where Shenlong's Spirit 2pc bonus did not trigger consistently while casting Tempest Rush.
• Witch Doctor Ethereal Fix | The Gidbinn
  •  +200% to all Voodoo skills now properly benefits Fetish Sycophants.

 

Reimagining a legend: Behind Ethereal items in Season 24

Blizzard has posted an informative blog detailing some of the behind-the-scenes thoughts when adding Ethereal items to Diablo III for season 24!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

 

“Funny story,” begins Frankie Lee, one of the senior game designers on the Diablo III team, “when I was young, my mom thought I spent too much time playing video games because I was on Diablo II for hours and hours. I was mostly farming and trying to trade a Stone of Jordan for something, and I told my mom, ‘I’m learning valuable business skills for my future.’ Now here I am, not utilizing any of those business skills, but instead designing Diablo III.”

 

One of Lee’s latest design endeavors, aided by his fellow talented designers on the Diablo III team, is the introduction of Diablo II’s renowned Ethereals to Diablo III in Season 24.

 

The Ethereal item line comprises 21 powerful weapons—three for each class—that provide meaningful damage boosts to your demon-slaughtering endeavors. They’re instruments of prodigious potential from a bygone era that have recently resurfaced in Sanctuary to be brandished by heroes capable enough of wielding them, characterized by three preeminent attributes: they are rare, powerful, and fleeting. “You can only equip one at a time, and they have random legendary powers along with their numerous strong [fixed] affixes,” says Lee.

 

When paving the groundwork for Season 24 and its accompanying theme, the team wanted to hearken back to Diablo II and the memories it left with them long ago. They iterated on several ideas, says Lee, but none of them felt as right as Ethereal Memory. “We really wanted to make this season feel special. We wanted to capture the spirit of Diablo II through an itemization-based seasonal theme, which led to the idea of Ethereals in Diablo III.” The concept of Ethereal items flourished, not only paying homage to the deep impact Diablo II had on Diablo III, its developers, and many of its players, but allowing the developers to reimagine how the iconic item line could be reimagined over two decades later.

 

For the Diablo III team, reimagining an iconic item line from Diablo II in its successor was an intricate endeavor. “One of the biggest questions we asked ourselves was, ‘what does it mean to make a Diablo II item in Diablo III?’” says Lee. “We looked deep down inside and tried to remember decades ago how it felt when a legendary in Diablo II dropped. It was rare, it was unique, it was strong, it had so many affixes, and it felt powerful.”

 

Some legendaries in Diablo II, Lee notes, were also never called by their unique names, but were instead referred to by their item types. They weren’t just powerful weapons and armor—they were ethereal weapons and armor. While Diablo III’s incarnation of Ethereal items don’t have the reduced durability and repair difficulty of Diablo II Ethereals that gave them a hallmark sensation of fleeting (assuming you didn’t use the Zod Rune)—but potent—power, the Ethereals introduced to Diablo III will only be obtainable and usable for the duration of Season 24. They still retain the unique icons, names, item types, and sounds they originally possessed in Diablo II, and can be transmogrified to your weapons after the season has ended if you manage to collect all 21 of them in Season 24.

 

With Diablo II: Resurrected launching on September 23 this year, Lee and the Diablo III team hope everyone will enjoy obtaining the unimaginable power offered by these weapons. “We want players to enjoy finding their first Ethereal and figuring out how to incorporate it into their builds after reading its numerous affixes,” Lee says. “Hopefully Ethereals can usher in new metas and give everyone an amazing experience this season.”

Diablo II: Resurrected Accessibility Blog

Diablo II: Resurrected features several accessibility features which allow players of all types to enjoy the game. Blizzard has released an official blog detailing many of these features that will be available at launch!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Official Post)

 

The journey to resurrecting Diablo® II as the modern incarnation releasing this September has been a challenging and rewarding endeavor. One of Blizzard’s priorities is to always look for ways to iterate and improve the entertainment experiences we create for our players. That can’t be better demonstrated than by our efforts on Diablo II: Resurrected. Visually, the remastered aesthetic brings the classic game into stunning high-resolution to take advantage of the latest hardware, but we also wanted to identify ways to provide a smoother and more accessible gameplay experience to as many people as possible. To illustrate the D2R team’s philosophy around making the Burning Hells a more welcoming destination for everyone, we invited design and UX accessibility lead Drew McCrory to share his insights.

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The Philosophy

So, when we first sat down with the intent of modernizing one of the most beloved ARPGs of all time, we knew there was work to do from all angles. The game is over 20 years old, and the longtime Diablo II community is ravenous and heavily entrenched in decades of eccentricities and quirks. Our team includes many D2 purists who have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game before working on it professionally, and our goal is not to break what isn't broken.

 

One thing we agree on is that it doesn't matter how pretty the grass is if you can't see the legendary staff on the ground; it ultimately sabotages the core gameplay experience. Accessibility is one major area of opportunity for this remaster to shine, and our intention to bring games to more players has evolved and is more refined now than ever before.

Quality of Life Opportunities

We had early wins with accessibility improvements like auto-gold pick-up, larger font sizes, UI scaling on Windows® PC, and options like gamma and contrast settings to enhance readability. But we knew that there were even more opportunities to improve accessibility to further enhance the gameplay of Diablo II for many of our current and potential future players.

 

Let’s take auto-gold pick-up as an example. Our initial inspiration for this feature’s implementation was for controller players to not need to click as much, but we were pleasantly surprised to see mouse and keyboard players with limited mobility in their hands really enjoy this feature during the Technical Alpha. If a player with a disability or hand injury was looting in Diablo II: Resurrected, this option could alleviate physical stress without compromising the core gameplay experience. While we implemented this option with one type of player in mind, we ended up benefiting countless other players by giving them a quality of life (QoL) option they can choose to enable when they configure their personal Diablo II experience. This exhibits the “Solve for One, Extend to Many” principle, leading to a greater impact throughout the player community.

 

One fascinating issue we diagnosed early was that players weren't getting the right level of feedback for when they were missing enemies in melee. When you dive into how Diablo II works, it's rolling dice on the back end as it’s a role-playing game first and foremost. You could be right on top of a monster, and your sword might animate through that target as though a strike landed. But in actuality, your stats rolled poorly, so that attack was a whiff. That's a sound system; the problem was the game wasn't telling players what happened loud enough. Do you know what that looks like in a modern game? A bug.

 

 

 

So, we added an option to enable miss text. It's a small thing. Purists don't need it, but what it does is provide a level of feedback to the players who don't know how all the inner systems are working and reinforces the RPG element of our game.

 

Another key piece of accessibility is key bindings. Allowing players to set their station fully is critical. Our control scheme for controllers allows for heavy amounts of modification, and we support a long list of bindable actions for the mouse and keyboard. We provide twelve bindable keys and allow all actions/skills to be assigned in any way the player desires. To support this, we’ve even created new bindable neutral skills like interact, allowing for complete customization.

 

Diablo II is primarily a game about picking up and holding items and persistently clicking. We know that prolonged holds and repetitive actions can be a significant barrier for some players, so we’ve added quality of life features to help mitigate the fatigue caused by many of these actions. For example, now players can toggle actions (such as viewing items on the ground) to be on click vs. on hold.

 

 

This improvement prevents the need to keep pressure on a button for a prolonged time. After the Technical Alpha, this change alone is a massive win to users who shared their testing feedback, and we’re happy we were able to hit it. We also allow many controller abilities to continuously trigger if the button is held down for players who can’t repeatedly tap buttons quickly.

Audio Accessibility

Getting the most out of audio is also a critical second-channel piece of feedback for players in Diablo II. With the number of audio cues going on, we felt we should allow players to manually augment their sound channels, culling what they don't think is essential and enhancing what they prefer. In the Options menu, players can adjust the volume levels of a multitude of audio channels. These sliders allow you to adjust the audio levels of voices, UI cues, footsteps, monster hit impacts, weapon noises, ambient objects, combat gore, and so much more.

 

 

With the options we provide, we hope that players attune their audio to their playstyle, including situational accessibility needs. Perhaps if you’re streaming or your baby is asleep in the other room, you can now enable or disable audio to ensure you’re getting the proper feedback at the level you want.

 

We have more optional accessibility features beyond what I’ve highlighted above in the works for players to enhance their experience at their discretion. We’ll continue to remain focused on how to take a true classic and modernize its accessibility for all players. Our team has the most fun when everyone is having fun, and we’ll do our best to enable as many players as possible to play Diablo II: Resurrected.

Drew McCrory Design UX/Accessibility Lead

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As Drew noted, we’ll continue to look for feedback that points to ways we can make our game more accessible. Our teams have previously sought feedback from a variety of players, including those with disabilities, to make Diablo II: Resurrected as accessible as possible. Between text-to-speech and screen reader support or adding controller configurations to allow players who play predominantly play with one hand to swap their analog stick controls interchangeably; as a community we’ll continue to evaluate areas to improve. We are grateful to these players for identifying challenges that would hinder their experience or make the game less enjoyable and several of the options highlighted above were inspired by and implemented because of their valuable insights.

 

Ultimately, Diablo II: Resurrected has been a labor of love, refitted by passionate fans who fondly remember the original who are eager to build more lifelong memories with a new generation. We want everyone, from experienced veterans to new players, and regardless of platform or ability, to enjoy the timeless experience that is Diablo II.

 

If you would like to participate in these playtests and studies, members of our community can sign up on the Blizzard Research site. We’re always seeking unique perspectives to help us improve players’ experiences in our games.

 

For more updates on Diablo II: Resurrected, be sure to stay dialed in on all our channels. Please share your impressions on the official Diablo II forums or r/Diablo subreddit. And, if you want to learn more about Diablo II: Resurrected, check out our website here, or for real-time updates, follow our official Twitter @Diablo!

 

Thank you!