diablo II: Resurrected

A Timeless Classic, Resurrected:

Diablo® II: Resurrected™ is a remastered version of the quintessential action RPG Diablo® II. Pursue the mysterious Dark Wanderer and fight the denizens of hell as you uncover the fate of the Prime Evils Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, now in up to 4K (2160p) resolution on PC. Diablo II Resurrected features:

  • Remastered graphics—monsters, heroes, items, spells, all resurrected.

  • An epic story told through five distinct acts.

  • Classic gameplay—the same Diablo II you know and love, preserved.

  • Updated Battle.net support.

  • Planned support for cross-progression—take your progress wherever you play.

  • … and much more!

Responsibilities: 

  • Regression Testing — Ensure new bugs are entered into tracking software and implemented bugs are verified as successfully fixed across all affected platforms

  • Censorship Passes for China Release — Ensure China build deliverable conforms to government censorship guidelines

  • Parity — Ensure content is 1:1 with legacy Diablo 2 behavior in both gameplay systems and HD & SD assets

  • Console Testing — Ensure gameplay is bug free and performant across Sony consoles (PS4 & PS5) in addition to PC platforms

  • Live Ops testing — As the Assassin Character class feature owner, investigate community reported bugs and analyze feedback regarding Public Test Realm balance changes to help guide design efforts

  • Performance Testing — Ensure all content remains within framerate, processing, and graphical budgets.

  • Localization Testing — Ensure strings are free of errors across all supported languages

  • Ad Hoc & Exploratory Testing — Catch bugs that may have slipped through the cracks of previous test runs and have unique reproducibility steps

PTR & Balance Changes:

With the first new content changes coming to the Diablo 2 core gameplay in over 15 years; we needed to ensure it was done right. As such, responsibility was divide among the QA team with small teams becoming feature owners of specific character classes to ensure a seamless player experience. My specific charge was the Assassin, who was slated to undergo a few significant changes.

First, the Assassin’s Trap and Shadow Discipline skill trees received some significant balance improvements. This required me to run a slew of damage calculations across a number of use cases across all levels of play to ensure the new numbers we were seeing were appropriate and felt right.

Second and most importantly, her Martial Arts skill tree was slated for a small rework which had the potential to radically shift how powerful she was within the meta. This change meant I needed to take special care to monitor and sift through player feedback to ensure not only there were no bugs I had missed, but that the character had not shifted wildly out of balance as we had no better way to predict how all of these skill changes would affect high level Assassin builds.

All in all, the new Assassin was received with overwhelming positivity by the community. The Assassin even boasted to be the single most positive change across the PTR balance changes, according to the quantitative data we gathered in QA!