A group of Diablo fans have released an expansive overhaul mod more than 16 years in the making, featuring new and restored content alongside heaps of quality-of-life tweaks.
The Hell 2 adds “at least 50% more content” to the Hellfire version of the iconic action-RPG, which breaks down as 24 basic dungeon levels and 21 new quest levels for the single-player mode. Now when you kill Diablo on level 16, you’ll find stairs that lead you deeper into hell to levels that offer greater challenge and reward.
The team has also restored quests that didn’t make it into the original Diablo, featuring unique settings of both ice and blood alongside quest location features like attack and cast slowdowns and regeneration modifiers.
The moment-to-moment gameplay feels totally different, too. Alongside new monsters, items, and spells, you’ve got six rebalanced classes to choose from – the Hellfire version of Diablo made the Monk an available option alongside the Warrior, Rogue, and Sorcerer, with the Barbarian and Bard going on to appear in the game’s files. If that’s not enough depth, there are 29 subclasses to explore, each offering unique gameplay features like dual wielding or trapping.
You don’t have to explore the mod alone, either. Using RadminVPN, the team has managed to add functioning multiplayer with instanced and segregated loot alongside dynamic difficulty.
As for quality-of-life tweaks, you’re getting an ungraded engine that supports adjustable resolutions up to 4K, widescreen, window modes, motherless, fullscreen, and an adjustable framerate of up to 10,000fps.
As the team explains on Patreon, The Hell 2 builds upon the group’s previous release – there are no prizes for guessing what it’s called. Work started on that in 2006, with The Hell 2 emerging in name in December 2017. Now that the Hell 2 is complete, the team has The Hell 3 in its sights, though don’t expect that for “years”.
We played Diablo Immortal, and it only makes me want Diablo 4 more.
