The History of Diablo II

The sequel that outran its own record.

Diablo II (Windows, June 28, 2000) took the first game's formula out of one dungeon and across four acts of desert, jungle, and Hell. It sold a million copies in two weeks, a Guinness world record at the time, and 4 million within its first year.

THE MAKING

Three years, eighteen months of crunch

Blizzard North built the sequel over three years, with a crunch period of a year and a half that the studio's own postmortem does not hide. David Brevik and Erich Schaefer designed it, with Max Schaefer sharing project lead; Matt Uelmen returned to compose. The cover painting, the Dark Wanderer whose skull fills both boxes on this Library's gallery shelf, is by Gerald Brom.

The structural change was intent. The first Diablo had its multiplayer built in a six-month rescue; Diablo II was designed for Battle.net from the start, with party-scaling spells, closed realms that stored characters on Blizzard's servers against the first game's cheating epidemic, and an item system, sets, sockets, runes, and the Horadric Cube, built to make trading a game of its own. Five classes replaced three: Amazon, Necromancer, Barbarian, Sorceress, and Paladin.

LORD OF DESTRUCTION

The first-party expansion, 2001

Where the first game's expansion was outsourced over Blizzard North's protests, Lord of Destruction (June 29, 2001) was made by Blizzard North itself, and the difference shows in its standing. It added a fifth act on Mount Arreat, two classes, the Assassin and the Druid, an enlarged stash, and hirelings who stay with you for the whole game. It scored 87 on Metacritic, with IGN at 8.8, and it passed a million copies by August 2001, breaking sales records of its own. For most players since, Diablo II means Diablo II with Lord of Destruction installed.

THE EDITIONS

Boxes, chests, and a resurrection

Original · 2000

Windows June 28, 2000 in North America, June 30 in Europe; Mac OS followed July 26. A Collector's Edition added the Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting and Blizzard trailers.

Japan · Capcom · 2000

Capcom published in Japan in two steps: an English version with a Japanese manual on July 1, 2000, then the fully Japanese edition on October 18 at 9,800 yen. Same Brom painting, Japanese dressing.

Battle Chest · 2001

Diablo, Diablo II, Lord of Destruction, and the strategy guide in one box. It was still appearing in the NPD top ten in 2010, and was the 19th best-selling PC game of 2008.

Resurrected · 2021

The remaster of game and expansion together, September 23, 2021, with re-rendered cinematics and cross-progression, and the original experience deliberately preserved underneath.

THE RECEPTION

Acclaim, with the dissent kept

Metacritic · 88

The PC average, with GameRankings at 89 percent: a strong score that still sat below the first game's 94, a gap the sequel's scale was expected to close and did not, on paper.

Next Generation · 5 / 5

Greg Vederman gave it five stars: "Diablo II is a must-have PC title. That's all there is to it."

GameSpot · 8.5 · IGN · 8.3

The cooler end of the praise: both majors scored it well and below the original, GameSpot still naming it runner-up for its readers' 2000 role-playing award.

Game of the Year · 2001

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences named it PC Role-Playing Game of the Year, PC Game of the Year, and overall Game of the Year at the 4th Interactive Achievement Awards.

THE LEGACY

The game that would not leave the charts

Diablo II's afterlife is a sales story that kept renewing itself: 2.75 million copies in 2000 alone, a third of them outside the United States, the Battle Chest charting eight years after release, and 11 million people still playing Diablo II and StarCraft over Battle.net in 2010. Time placed it 21st on its 50 best games of all time; Game Informer ranked it the eighth-best role-playing game ever made.

Its Japanese edition is a quieter artifact: the same painting as America's box, published by Capcom, localized in two steps, and dressed with a white plate and a chat sticker. The Library's covers page sets the pair side by side.

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

Diablo II · PC

Diablo II American PC box art, the Dark Wanderer skull by Gerald Brom

American PC box art · 2000

The fastest selling PC game of its day, at 4 million copies in a year.

The Gallery The covers, compared How was Diablo released in Japan?