by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Several days ago, a nondescript website with the URL of diablo2hd.com appeared and quickly sent the community into a frenzy. The site pictured a faded image of the original Diablo II box art with a countdown timer that conveniently coincided with the exact moment that BlizzCon 2016 is set to start. The top of the page read “Evil has survived…”, which clearly called to some sort of return of Diablo himself. The entire thing was believed to be a fake promotional website by a majority of the community due to the shoddy quality of the site’s imagery combined with some digging into the domain registration by enterprising individuals.

Earlier today, PC Gamer was able to officially confirm with folks at Blizzard Entertainment that the site does not belong to Blizzard and is therefore a hoax.

I reached out to Blizzard to ask about the site, and was told bluntly, “This isn’t ours.”

As of the writing of this article, the site has already been decommissioned, so it would seem the creator has decided to hang it up now that the hoax has been uncovered. The slight belief in this actually being for real is not unfounded however, as Blizzard has been on a strong 20th anniversary kick to celebrate the life of the Diablo franchise and with Diablo I

and Diablo II both being playable at Gamescom 2016, some believe that we are set for an announcement of these classic games getting a modern day facelift come BlizzCon 2016. However, whether that’s simply making it so t hat the games are more convenient to load and play on modern machines or alternatively more heavily worked remakes still waits to be seen.

Were you fooled by the hoax? Do you want to believe? Let us know where your thoughts are on a Diablo II remake.