With Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred right around the corner, it’s time to cast your mind back to arguably Blizzard’s best RPG – and certainly its most important – with the announcement of Project Diablo 2 Season 10. The fan project has been maintaining the beloved ARPG for several years now, preserving and upgrading D2 and its Lord of Destruction expansion as though development was still continuing to this day. Its new season is on the way, and the mod creators have just unveiled its key updates, which include a new uber boss fight, more runewords, and a very welcome quality-of-life tool.
Project Diablo 2 Season 10 is titled ‘Desecration’ and continues its developers’ project to provide an updated, modernized version of one of the best RPGs ever. If you haven’t already experienced what PD2 has to offer, you can expect the core experience you know, but with a fresh coat of love and polish. That includes a ladder, reworked and refreshed uniques, item corruptions, new skills, stackable items, a shared stash, and endgame content including Path of Exile-style maps, uber boss fights, and group-oriented dungeons.
Coming in Season 10 is another of those uber boss fights – designed to be the ultimate test of your build. It’s being kept under wraps for now to avoid spoilers, but that’s just the start. In line with the introduction of Diablo 4 runewords, there are two new runewords to look forward to here. ‘Purity’ slots into polearms, spears, staffs, bows, and crossbows, boosting attack speed and damage, massively amplifying your attacks against demons, and applying both the healing Prayer aura and lifesteal on hit to your character.
The other option is a six-socket ‘Rapture’ runeword for hammers. It transforms your weapon into a brutal tool of destruction, giving you a chance to cast both Fissure and Lower Resist when attacking. It also increases attack speed, massively amplifies your damage, and causes you to both ignore the target’s defenses and prevent them from healing. You’ll even earn extra gold while using it and deal additional damage when fighting undead. Sounds like a real winner, if you ask me.
There’s even more to look forward to in Season 10. Paladin has had some adjustments made, with a Smite rework, Cleansing upgrade, and balance pass on its class-specific shields. Throwing Mastery has been changed to Ranged Mastery and now also works for bow and crossbow builds. There are two new custom maps, Bone Spear’s hitbox has been widened for Necromancers, and Assassin’s Claws of Thunder gets piercing on its third stage charged bolts.
Some welcome quality-of-life changes are on the way as well. All settings have now been integrated into the menu that comes up when you press Escape for more easy access. You can also use the ‘.noexp’ command to temporarily turn off the ability to earn experience – this is specific to your character and persists between games. While it might seem like a strange addition to some, it’s a long-requested feature for players who enjoy low-level dueling or challenge runs, so it’s nice to see it finally make an appearance.
Project Diablo 2 Season 10, Desecration, begins Friday October 25. A closed beta for supporters will run Thursday October 12 to Friday October 20, with an open beta on the weekend of October 21-22. Note that you’ll need legitimate copies of both Diablo 2 and its Lord of Destruction DLC in order to play.
That should give you plenty of time to see what the Diablo 4 Spiritborn class has to offer in the new expansion, and decide if you’re eager to return to something a little more old-school.
If you’re after something more immediate, the good news is that the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred release date is finally almost here. Until then, we’ve picked out even more of the best games like Diablo on PC as well, if you just can’t get enough.
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