Digital Foundry Gives Its Verdict On Diablo II: Resurrected On Switch

Diablo III Eternal Collection on Switch was my first foray into the dungeon crawling world of Diablo, and I really enjoyed it. I may well pick D2 Resurrected up too at some point, but I’ll more than likely wait for a sale first.

A minor nitpick, but what's leads to the decision of reducing the resolution down to 900p?

I would buy it but it’s made by Pure Evil Inc. so maybe not

@ModdedInkling To most likely keep the framerate at 30fps.

@Zuljaras I wondered if there was a limit to chars or not. So far I haven’t needed as many mules as I originally had back in 2001-2005, but I will get there eventually, lol.
I concur though, I love D2 portable, I’ve wanted this for awhile. I thought we were gonna get a D2 port on 3DS back in like 2015 and I was excited at the prospect!

I’ve got no outward gripes with the game, minus server issues, but anyone who’s been a Blizzard game fan since original Warcraft and D2 knows that Blizzard NEVER has stable servers at launch…. Ever.

@Zuljaras yeah the limit is silly. I understand a limit for online if that’s the case, but offline makes no sense.

On original D2 I played mainly online due to friends and trade community. Around 2003 I learned how to mod it and started hosting modded private games. That was fun stuff. Here I’m playing a mix of online (to help a friend through his first time) and offline cause it’s smoother than dealing with Blizz servers lol

Still not getting it
Never buy anything from Activision/Blizzard ever again

I really haven't run into any issues with the game on Switch. It works, and that's about fine in terms of my expectations for the game.

I did like the trip down memory lane when it came to the game, because it really does show how different game design is today compared to 20 years ago.

I have literally never heard a gamer talk about FPS in the wild and I work in tech startup and have for years - people either have a switch and an xbox and love all games, or have a Playstation and only play FIFA and CoD

@GannonBanned then you clearly haven't talked to many people.

Hm. I'm fairly surprised that even for a game like Diablo II, they had to make so many graphical concessions. Eh, I can wait for a sale, I suppose. I still have the original PC release, anyway!

@Zuljaras dang 30 isn’t enough? U are super ambitious XD I’d be content with 1 of each character

@Lordplops how often does frames per second come up in your daily conversation lmao

@Zuljaras maybe do the pc version? Isn’t it cross save?

It doesn’t support local wireless play so it’s useless to me. So unfortunate since number 3 did.

@GannonBanned

Most discuss if its fun or not.
Also Gameplay Mechanics, Controls or other Design Choices.
But how many Frames? Nearly never, only if it is reaaaallly noticable as in Hyrule Warriors 2.

@Zuljaras man I freaking love playing switch on the toilet.

@Zuljaras Unhealthy grind hoarder…. 😂😂😂 Yup, this is the game that introduced me to being a hoarder. Found myself doin the same right off the bat, saving all rares, and anything with 2+ sockets….

@GannonBanned Cause the type of gamer who would talk about framerate aren't ever gonna be in the wild. They're too busy locked up in a dark bedroom some where trying to min max their character in WoW, or having online arguments with random on the internet.

@ModdedInkling because the switch has less processing power than your grandfather's old smartphone.

@The_Pixel_King Same here. Now it's in my all-time top 10, so Diablo II was a day one purchase. Haven't regretted it a bit.

@Floki this is true, probably locked in their bedrooms watching digital foundry videos and commenting on Nintendolife...hang on.

@GannonBanned you aren’t suggesting that PlayStation players only play FIFA and COD are you?

Can't wait to watch this later! I've been tempted to get Diablo ll, but haven't purchased it yet. One of my online friends has over 400 hours logged into Diablo ll on their Switch, so it must be addictive for them!

I work in a window factory and people talk about dropped frames and frames per second all the time. It's pretty serious. You drop a frame and it comes outta your pay.

All I know is it’s more Diablo on switch, so we bought 2 copies. Anyone who thinks switch is inferior because of graphics, then goes and plays this on a ps5 in legacy mode, has no credibility.

@Zuljaras I feel like Diablo was a pc exclusive…but I can play it on switch too. I’m confused.

Finished the game on normal and am now near the end of Act 5 on nightmare. Love this game. I have it on my Xbox-X. Will buy double dip the Switch when sales.
The best version I think is still the modded version on PC Grim Dawn. They have vastly expanded the storage capacity. You can even zoom the camera until a 3rd person views and play it that way.

I still refuse to believe that Switch could do Diablo 3 at a higher resolution with almost constant 60 fps and more detailed graphics, but Diablo 2 is running worse (even on PS5 is a tad bit disappointing, because it cannot run at 4K/60fps, while D3 could do that on PS4 Pro).
Unoptimized mess

@sixrings
I wasn't aware that there is no Local Wireless mode, thanks for bringing that up. Man, that's a bummer. You're absolutely right. Why didn't include that Switch feature when Diablo 3 had it?

@Zuljaras The same bug with weapon related skills is on the other consoles. I get the same thing on XBOX. The skill binds will work for a single instance, but as soon as I create a new game they are lost.

@GannonBanned A lot of you here don't get out much... or at least live solely in Nintendo land. Plenty of gamers talk about FPS. Especially with many games having options for quality and performance modes.

The same option exists in D2R. Which, BTW, my friends and I all went with performance because the FPS boost was very noticeable and the visual drop minor.

@GannonBanned I work in IT and I have a Switch and a PS5. I also love my 3DS.
I hate sports games and won’t ever buy an Xbox again.

Still no review from you guys but you can't keep blizzard's name out of your mouth. Grow a pair and ignore them entirely or do the review

@Flashlink99
Dude.. you and other people in this comment section seem to forget D3 came out in 2012!! D2R came out this year-.-

If you boot up D3 on Switch after playing D22 on Switch you will notice D3 looks like garbage compared to D2R. D2R is a beautiful remaster with way better lighting effects while D3 looks like a cartoony top down WoW made by Disney on a budget. Also, look at the download size of D2R and D3 on Switch, D2R is WAY bigger.

It's not weird at all D3 runs better on Switch, it always was a very light and graphically not too impressive game.

Where's your review of the game btw?

@liljazzy2 I’m making a generalization as a joke, but also I worked at a place where the parent company also owned a developer that made the annual game for a professional sport and our marketing director pulled some internal usage reports we had access to for a cross promotional campaign and on Sony’s own reports people used their PS4’s for Multimedia (porn, Netflix) more than games (Xbox was not the same) and the number one game was FIFA by an incredible margin

@Vidikron lol ok ¯(ツ)/¯ i guess your anecdotal evidence defeats my anecdotal evidence

The lighting is busted.
I'd rather have had the original, even if I didn't like that as much as the first game.

@Omedru d3 might have some flaws but its not garbage like some of you haters keep on saying.

@GannonBanned Hah… OK. I’m just saying it’s more common than you seem to think. Games have performance modes for a reason. If you play any MP games having a stable frame rate, and the higher the better, is a big deal.

Then on the PC side frames rates have been a consideration for decades. Anytime you fire up a new game it’s a question of how of how high of a resolution can you run and how many graphical bells and whistles can you enable and still have a frame rate you find comfortable. Frame rates are also often why you upgrade your GPU. Eventually new games start stress your GPU too much, the frames rates drop, and then you upgrade.

@Vidikron ok that’s a good point and distinction - PC performance has definitely been talked about - just not console performance

@RiasGremory
I played D3 this month on Switch for some couch co-op so I'm not one of those haters. I also own the game on PC, PS3, PS4. It's a fun action game (not that much of an arpg, it's been made super casual) for co-op but it's an almost 10 years old game that didn't even look that good when it came out.

A 22 year old game works on switch? Wow!

I might've been able to be persuaded to get this game to play with friends, but none of them got it, so it makes it all the easier to avoid supporting Activision / Bizzard.

@ModdedInkling Technical restrictions. I personally play in handheld and pretty much never dock to a TV. For me, the bare minimum for a game is to at least run at the native handheld screen resolution of 720p. I can't stand aggressive dynamic resolution scaling, but I don't mind it here and there if it isn't a constant glaring issue. I still believe that, had Nintendo chose to release the system with 8gb ram as was originally intended, we wouldn't have such a massive issue with resolution scaling. I'm aware that ram is not the only restriction, but I'm also aware that the switch is at least slightly more beefy than the seventh console generation, and they had all kinds of tricks to maintain a constant base 720p resolution. With Unreal Engine, the problem is most definitely ram, but I digress. At least they didn't pull a stunt like the team responsible for Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Those games were designed for the switch, and the switch alone, and can't maintain a resolution of more than 720p docked and 480p handheld, and those are just theoretical maximums, most of the time they drop much lower; it's pathetic. Why design a game specifically for a console that can't even run properly on that console? Instead they slap an ugly sharpening filter on it and call it a day. Ugh.

@Moistnado That is a wildly inaccurate statement. The processing power is quite competent, smartphones hardly compare, with the exception of the highest end flagship phones from the last two years. unfortunately the only real competition is Apple's M1 chipset, which sucks, because I despise Apple. It's ram that the switch lacks.

@chtan69 Grim Dawn is a different game...

@TheRealSetzer90
Yeah, that was the one thing I was quite skeptical about. The lack of RAM is pretty much the source of everyone's complaints about the Switch, alongside the software related stuff.

That being said, it's a bit fair to say that smartphones are beginning to forge ahead of the Switch's hardware capabilities in almost every way, with the exception of two things. The Switch's graphics chip, which has some untapped potential, and better cooling than mobile devices.

@TheRealSetzer90 Come on, switch is totally underpowered and most contemporary phones have more processing power. It can't even run old Star wars games from 20 years ago without slowdown.
.

@Moistnado Exactly how is an octocore (4 cortex a57, 4 cortex a51) coupled with a tegra X1 falling behind most contemporary cell phones? Sure the clock speeds on the arm processor are not blistering, but they don't need to be. If you're been only looking at how many GHz a cpu can crank out you aren't properly calculating computing power. As far as "old Star Wars games" having slow down. I'm not sure what old Star wars games you're talking about, but KOTOR and Jedi Academy work perfectly fine with absolutely no frame rate issues. If you're judging the system based only on a couple of anecdotal experiences based on "old Star Wars games" then you need to take your trolling behavior elsewhere, because there are plenty of instances when the system far outperforms the Seventh Console generation, and it was never even intended to directly compete with hardware that is made to sit in one place constantly recieving power from a direct source, mounted with massive heatsinks and cooling fans. The console is intended to be able to pick up and go no matter where you are, and it far outperforms non-gaming-dedicated cellphones. The only real exception is Apple's M1 line, and I wouldn't buy an Apple product if to the universe were about to implode on itself. Now get that crazy drivel out of a site dedicated to Switch reviews, good lord.

@TheRealSetzer90 Not really. It even has the Lord of Destruction mod which I consider even better than Diablo II remastered.

@chtan69 I'm sorry, I didn't see from your earlier comment that you were talking about a mod for Grim Dawn that is essentially a remake of Diablo 2 in the Grim Dawn engine, I misunderstood. It does look good, and I absolutely love Grim Dawn, it always gave me vibes of 'this is what Diablo 3 would have been if they hadn't have tried to stylize it so much', so I may have to give it a try. Not that I dislike Diablo 3, it just doesn't feel like the same dark world from the original two games.