“We went more blood, more gore, more fire, more pentagrams. Listening to Lorna Shore’s To The Hellfire, he feels, perfectly matched the OTT approach to the imagery in Diablo II: Resurrected. Having grown up just across state lines from their Richmond base, Virginia’s Lamb Of God are one of his favourite bands, along with deathcore outfits like Aborted and Shadow Of Intent. When it came to the remaster, Dustin and many of his colleagues would turn to metal as a soundtrack from which they could draw inspiration. Then you had the more aggressive aspects of metal coming through in marketing materials. Composers were using rock and metal albums as the influence for the entirety of their game scores, drawing from that ambience and mood. “You could see metal beginning to influence developers. “I remember being in college around that time,” says Dustin. It was no coincidence that Diablo II first arrived at the height of the nu-metal phenomenon, when crunching sounds were ruling the charts and invading the mainstream. Hell, Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia has even written a song with Italian YouTube supremo Mark The Hammer to celebrate its release.

Its undead hordes, Greater and Lesser Evils have never seemed so alive. The gore-streaked landscapes have never felt more terrifying.

With fully- 3D, 4K remaster Diablo II: Resurrected hitting servers and shelves this week, hardcore fans and newcomers alike will be able to return to the town of Tristram, and beyond, to contend with the series’ relentless fire and brimstone, while wading knee-deep through blood and guts once again.

It could hardly have been more metal had it tried…

Even more memorable, however, was its downright heinous imagery, inviting players to descend right into the depths of hell and unleash chaos at every turn. Picking up where the original had left off in 1997, while making a quantum leap in terms of intricacy, immersion and the sheer addictiveness of its core hack-and-slash, loot-pursuit gameplay, it offered an experience that drew players in and ravenously consumed hundreds of hours of each of their lives. Diablo II changed the game when it was released by Blizzard Entertainment in June 2000.

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