Following an “outpouring of community feedback,” Diablo II: Resurrected on PC will receive an Active Skill bindings bar that makes the game play more like modern ARPGs. It will also gain a public-test-realm in the near future, where players can test upcoming changes.
In a blog post, Blizzard writes that players of Diablo II: Resurrected on console have access to up to 12 buttons, and those buttons instantly perform whatever ability is mapped to them. That’s not the case on PC, where in original Diablo II fashion, players can only use the right and left mouse buttons to perform abilities. Players can swap between abilities with different keybindings, but actually activating the abilities has to be done with the right and left mouse. That will soon be changing, with Blizzard soon giving players the option between the two styles.
“We’ve seen an outpouring of community feedback requesting this feature for keyboard and mouse play, too. We originally avoided this approach because we feared it would stray too far from the original experience, but the community is eager for it, so we’re eager to deliver.”
Come the release of patch 2.3, players can enable the Active Skill bindings bar, which will show an additional skill bar above the standard HUD. Players can map up to 16 abilities this way, and if they choose to enable the Quick Cast Skills option, pressing those buttons will instantly use the abilities, rather than simply re-mapping them to the right or left mouse buttons.
It’s a big change for the game, but one that should make Diablo II: Resurrected go a long way towards feeling more modern while still staying true to many of the game’s other idiosyncrasies.
Other updates coming in patch 2.3 include an offline mode for console players, who will be able to manually increase the game’s difficulty as if up to eight additional players were present. Diablo II’s next update will also bring various graphical, audio, and UI improvements.
Blizzard’s announcement of a PTR for Diablo II: Resurrected seems to indicate that even more updates and changes are on the way. No word yet on when exactly the PTR will become available, but Blizzard states that all players will be able to participate. The initial focus of the PTR will be to fix ongoing database and server issues that have plagued the game since launch. After that, Blizzard writes that they will “share more details on Ladder rank play and even more new changes coming to Diablo II: Resurrected.”
Patch 2.3 is currently scheduled to release in early December. In other Diablo news, Diablo IV, which didn’t have a release date, will now release even later than expected. The news comes amidst the ongoing fallout from various lawsuits and investigations into alleged sexual harassment and discrimination at Activision Blizzard.
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