Project Diablo 2 Season 9 has arrived, making it the perfect time to jump back into one of the best RPG games ever. The ambitious fan-created project aims to keep the original Diablo 2 and its Lord of Destruction expansion up to date for a modern audience, with regular seasons and a ladder reset along with new features each season “as if development never ceased.” If you’re wondering what to do now that the Diablo 4 Season 4 PTR is over with a month still to go until the full thing arrives, this is just what you’re after.
Diablo 2 remains an essential part of PC gaming history, and is still one of the best RPG games of all time, making it well worth a revisit. While the official Blizzard remaster is a great way to go, especially if you’re playing through for the first time, Project Diablo 2 is probably the ideal way to spice things up a bit, with a whole heap of quality-of-life upgrades over the base game and plenty of new features on top – and it’s a great way to pass the coming month as we wait for the delayed Diablo 4 Season 4 release date.
The core Lord of Destruction endgame stays in place, but the PD2 development team has drawn inspiration from other top ARPGs such as Path of Exile with a customizable endgame mapping system, challenging Uber boss fights, and dungeons designed for group play. The new season sees a big balance update, new items, rebalanced crafting, and much more, meaning that even if you’ve played Project Diablo 2 before you’ll want to check in again.
Among the highlights for season 9 are a 50% increase to the base monster density on all maps to reduce a need to reroll, a new spreading poison mechanic for the Necro Poison Dagger, a boost to the maximum gold capacity, and the ability to craft with diamonds (with the results varying based on item type). There’s also extensive class rebalancing, which has been further polished through two beta tests, and a rework to how melee hit checks are calculated that should make landing attacks on moving monsters a little more player-friendly.
Project Diablo 2 Season 9, Anarchy, begins Friday April 12, 2024. You can jump in right now if you’re eager to get started by heading to the official website – just note that you’ll need a legitimate retail copy of both Diablo 2 and the Lord of Destruction DLC in order to play. Or you can take a look through the extensive patch notes courtesy of the PD2 team to see exactly what’s changed.
Alternatively, we’ve picked out more of the best games like Diablo to keep you entertained until Diablo 4 Season 4 rolls around, or you can branch out further and find plenty to enjoy among the best free PC games.
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