Diablo 2: Resurrected's Accessibility Options Include Plenty Of Quality-Of-Life Changes

Diablo II Resurrected is aiming to introduce more than just a more modern visual touch to the updated sequel, as Blizzard has gone to great effort to make the game more accessible than ever before.

In a new blog post, the studio revealed how it introduced new quality-of-life changes that were designed to create a smoother and more accessible gameplay experience. Some of these new design elements that have gone through testing include auto-gold pick-up, larger font sizes, user interface scaling, and options like gamma and contrast settings to enhance readability.

Auto-gold pick-up was originally added to help out players who using a controller, but Blizzard quickly discovered that the option could alleviate physical stress without compromising the core gameplay experience. Another improvement to the game was the option to enable miss text, a feature that would provide visual feedback for when a player's attack missed while reinforcing the RPG element of the game.

Beyond that, Blizzard has added heavy amounts of modification for controllers, a long list of bindable actions for mouse and keyboard setups, new bindable neutral skills like interact, and twelve bindable keys that allow for actions and skills to be assigned in a specific manner.

"Diablo II is primarily a game about picking up and holding items and persistently clicking," design and UX accessibility lead Drew McCrory explained. "We know that prolonged holds and repetitive actions can be a significant barrier for some players, so we've added quality of life features to help mitigate the fatigue caused by many of these actions. We also allow many controller abilities to continuously trigger if the button is held down for players who can't repeatedly tap buttons quickly."

On the audio side, Diablo II: Resurrected allows players to manually augment their sound channels and cut sounds out that aren't essential to them. Sliders for voices, UI cues, footsteps, monster hit impacts, weapon noises, ambient objects, combat gore, and more can be adjusted. Blizzard said that more optional accessibility features are in development ahead of the game's upcoming release. Diablo II: Resurrected preorders for PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5 are live and offer entry to an early-access beta for all platforms except Switch.

Other changes coming to the classic RPG are plentiful and minor in nature, but Blizzard has stressed that it aims to keep the gameplay of the original Diablo II intact as it adds a number of updates to the game. There's also Diablo 4 to look forward to, although Blizzard said that the game won't be coming in 2021 and hasn't yet revealed a launch window for it.