Diablo 2 Remake Reportedly in Development at Vicarious Visions

In a surprise announcement, known video game publisher Activision officially reveals merging its subsidiary studio Vicarious Visions with Blizzard Entertainment only days ago to serve as a support team for various ongoing projects.

A report on Bloomberg claims that Vicarious Visions is currently working on action role-playing hack-and-slash game franchise Diablo, including a planned remake of classic dark fantasy RPG title Diablo II for some time since last year.

Blizzard reportedly had Team 1 working on development of projects like Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft: Remastered, StarCraft II and Warcraft III: Reforged before assigning them for highly-anticipated Diablo 2 Remake until last year.

After a disastrous launch, Reforged received a low Metacritic score and Blizzard had to dissolve Team 1 and reassigned its members. They were put in charge of Diablo IV briefly afterwards as Vicarious Visions joined for Diablo 2 Remake.

There has already been a rumor earlier for Blizzard making a high-definition remake of Diablo 2, in association with Vicarious Visions. It was reportedly titled Diablo II: Resurrected and Blizzard originally had release plans set for Q4 2020.

Vicarious Visions previously worked on Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and most recently, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 Remaster. On behalf of Activision, they even teamed up Bungie, serving as a support team for Destiny 2 back in 2017.

Activision has acquired Vicarious Visions in 2005 and kept them as a subsidiary for last 15 years until now. Whether or not merging the New York-based studio with Blizzard is good decision is yet to be seen at some point in near future.

Diablo II: Resurrected was reportedly planned for a 2020 release window but that has probably being delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic. Given their recent success, Vicarious Visions is likely to do a great job on Diablo 2 Remake project.