Trivia. Diablo 2: Tips and trivia from hardcore veterans

Diablo II might have never been made – the production of the original was so tedious and exhausting that the team wasn't all that crazy about working on the next games from the series. David Brevik, Blizzard's lead designer at the time, wanted to do a very different game, with an NFL license, in which a player would start his American football career from high school.

The hardcore mode (involving permanent death) was planned as the only gameplay option. The game's lead designer had this idea, but his team convinced him to change the decision, as they had rightly projected that losing hours of progress on end could be too much to bear for many players. As we all know, the hardcore mode remained in the game, but it is only an alternative for thrill-seeking players (and masochists).

Diablo 2 has a lot of unused items, which can be easily found in game files; you can find out about most of them by digging through the web. From what I can tell from the files and conversations with the game designer, we were originally supposed to get certain organs from monsters that could then be used to create other things, such as potions.

Could have been NFL, but there's Diablo 2 instead.

In the character wizard, you can find an item called "Black Tower Key." It looks like the keys to the Pandemonium event, but has no use. This is most likely part of the developers' unfinished location design. The quest with the key has probably been replaced by the quest with the creation of Khalim's Will. There are several other stories of unused ideas in the game, such as the extra quests in Act IV – here, too, a key was supposed to appear that presumably opened the entrance to the Chaos Sanctuary.

Skills in Diablo 2 were modified during production, many of them underwent some transformations, others changed beyond recognition, and others still did not make it into the final version. Take curses as an example. In the early stages of the production, they were treated as projectiles that monsters could dodge; now, they are spells with immediate effect on the enemy.

There's also the mind control, a removed necromancer skill. It also seems interesting to mention that a druid could shapeshift into an eagle, as he does into a wolf, and a bear.

(Pop)culture easter eggs

In Diablo 2, we will find many references to pop culture, and developers' names. Such things are nice to discover on your own, so I won't spoil the pleasure. I will only mention a certain dirk called The Diggler, which is a reference to the fictional character Dirk Diggler from the Paul Thomas Anderson film Boogie Nights.

You will find a lot of culture references in Diablo 2.

The game is inspired by history, culture and art. During the journey through Act I, one of the last locations we traverse is the cathedral, where we can see a strangely familiar image. This is part of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Harold, Duke of England, and his knights riding to the church at Bosham. The Heavenly Brothers item set, on the other hand, was inspired by real South Korean treasures.

Plot tidbits

The first task we face in the game requires us to rid the Den of Evil of all monsters. When there are 5 enemies left in a location, the mission description updates to the status "remaining monsters: 5.” However, if one of the opponents is a Fallen Shaman with the ability to resurrect the Fallen, and the number of enemies in the location rises above five, the quest descriptor will show there are 666 beasts left to slaughter.

Even before the release of the Lord of Destruction expansion, which introduced two additional character classes (Druid and Assassin), we were able to meet one of them during our passage through Act III, while exploring the city of Kurast. This character, Natalya, does not give any quests, but her dialogues are interesting plot-wise, and she talks a lot about the nature of the assassin clan. Natalya disappears without a trace shortly after Mephisto's death.

There is another interesting fact associated with Mephisto. It is him, as well as Diablo, Baal and other minor demons that we can fight during the Pandemonium event. According to the developer logs for the game's storyline, it was Lilith who brought this lot back to life through a dark, summoning ritual. I assume a similar thread of Lord of Terror will be used in Diablo 4, since we already know from the official announcement that Lilith will appear in it.

The would-be, rich multiplayer

For many of us, PvP in Diablo 2 brings amazing memories and a lot of fun, but you have to admit that fighting a few meters from the entrance to the city doesn't seem ideal. According to pictures posted on the Internet, the game was to include an arena specially designed for this type of skirmishes, and even a kill counter. Unfortunately, it ultimately didn't make it into the final version of the game, as many other interesting ideas, which were buried by the approaching deadline.

In the end, we didn't get the arenas and guild headquarters.

The second Diablo was also supposed to have its own Guild Hall, suggesting plans for more extensive online aspects such as guilds, which we never got to see either. This is one of the removed options that saddens me the most as a fan of MMO games. Informal chats in the guild headquarters can be a nice break from hours of killing monsters.