As our treasure hunters run through the vault, a wayward acolyte solves a door puzzle, and one can’t help but recall Marius following the wanderer into Tal-Rasha’s tomb. “Sure, I’ve heard that before.” I thought to myself. Is it still considered an homage if it’s from the same franchise? Shouldn’t they all be homages to the ones that came before? Either way, I scoffed at the notion. Rumors had been spreading that the game would be an homage to D2. Diablo 4 is revealed, officially laying to rest the world’s worst kept secret. I became disillusioned with the whole genre, convinced that Diablo 2 was lightning in a bottle that could never be recaptured. Games like Path of Exile came and went, claiming to be ‘what Diablo 3 should have been.’ However, they just felt like boring Diablo 2 clones to me. I would go back from time to time as new content was added, but never would I spend time with it like I did with D2. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but there was something exciting about those panic inducing latency spikes that would accelerate an enemy to 200 miles an hour as he charged you.Īnd so, I checked out of Diablo 3 a few weeks after release. The game play was smoother too, but something was lost in that as well. The graphics were rounded out and smoother, taking away the Gothic aesthetic in favor of something that looked more like World of Warcraft. Somehow, the magic was lost in the new version of the game. Image Courtesy of BlizzardĪs I got deeper into the game, I became convinced that this was just what a more modern Diablo 2 would be. I knew even then that there was no way I would put the same time and love into D3 that I had its predecessor. If this was the sequel to Diablo 2, why did it look so different? Was this just the effect of improved graphics? Nevertheless, I jumped in at launch day and my overall impression was that the game was fine. Every time a new trailer or screenshot came out, there was excitement, but something else.

Except, something nagged at me the entire time. So when Diablo 3 was announced, I was over the moon excited.

Diablo 2 no gateway