Diablo (1) is now available on GOG.com

That's according to Blizzard themselves. It is REALLY weird that this is hitting GOG when you can't even get it on Battle.net (so far as I'm aware). I assume that Blizzard is happy to make it available, and they have the added benefit of being able to foist all the support issues off on GOG instead of dealing with them themselves. Curiously, Hellfire is not available.

Has anyone tried this out yet? I'm curious if this has aged well at all.

In spite of Hellfire not being there, at least yet, it's still awesome to see a classic like Diablo 1 become available again, and in a digital format as well. I spent so much time on it when it was brand new, and will always have a soft spot for the series!

Apparently it’s showing up on GOG because because they did a bunch of extra work on it and because the original Diablo executable is “incompatible with the Battle.net platform infrastructure.”

It sounds like Warcraft 1 and 2 are coming as well, so I guess we’re getting all of the classic Blizzard stuff. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Lost Vikings and Blackthorne show up too.

I’ve wanted an HDified Diablo 1 for a while, so this is pretty great for me. In a lot of ways, it’s closer to something like Rogue or Nethack than the games that came after it, even if the color-coded loot grind is still very much the same. I wonder if we’ll ever get a re-release of Hellfire too, given how Blizzard likes to pretend it doesn’t exist.

It really is bizarre seeing a Blizzard game on another platform. That said, while I never played Diablo, the FAQ under the OP's link states that Warcraft II is incoming and I am fucking there for a resolution-scaling copy of WC2.

@ladyaijou: There are some great writeups on Hellfire that explain why it will probably never (meaningfully) appear anywhere that Blizzard has control. Lots of hurt feelings over that game and a sense of "betrayal". I think Waypoint had a great article, if memory serves

Yeah, I'm not surprised Hellfire is not included, them actually saying "there are no plans to support the Hellfire expansion" may actually be the closest they've come to acknowledge that it even exists in like 20 years.

As someone who only ever liked Diablo 1 in the series, I'm happy to see it on GOG, since my original copy has been too scratched to play since the early 2000s. I'll say that I don't find their "enhancements" for the new client particularly noticeable, even when setting all the fancy new things to max, and even the new client seems to run at 20fps despite the store page kinda making it out to sound like that was only a limitation of the classic version.

I don't mind the lack of enhancements anyway, the game plays like I remember it, the music is still fantastic and it has atmosphere like no other Blizzard game.

Sure, it could've been neat if "high resolution support" actually let you see more of the world like in Diablo 2, rather than just upscaling the whole screen, but so far the only issue I've encountered is that the new client doesn't seem to support color cycling, i.e., palette based animations, which the original game used to animate water and some lighting effects, making the world look a bit more static than it used to. I'm sure it still works in the classic client which they also included, but I haven't tried it yet.

I always thought it was the best Diablo game but I had always wondered if it was just my nostalgia coloring things. But after booting it up, yep. It's still awesome. There are a lot of modern touches that aren't there of course - inventory tetris feels obnoxious today and there's no XP bar on screen and HP/MP numbers aren't displayed on the orbs, no easy item comparison, etc. But the game is still so much more atmospheric than the subsequent games. Especially Diablo III, which I think really failed to do the series justice.

I'm probably going to end up spending most of the weekend playing this.

If you're disappointed that the GOG release doesn't do more to improve upon vanilla Diablo 1, check out the Belzebub mod: https://mod.diablo.noktis.pl/features

It's the gold standard in Diablo 1 mods and it's compatible with this new GOG release. It adds many of the features people have mentioned missing in this thread and a whole lot more. It's like Diablo 1.5 in that it adds some Diablo 2 features to expand and flesh out the game, without straying from feeling like Diablo 1. Here are a few features:

• high resolution support--you can zoom in and out with mouse wheel to see more or less of the map
• fast walking in town (ala Hellfire)
• improved interface (XP bar on screen, numbers over HP/MP orbs, expanded quickslot belt, detailed character stats, graphical merchant trading, etc.)
• all multiplayer-only quests are available in singleplayer, plus some new quests
• Diablo 2-style waypoint system for quicker traveling between town and dungeon levels
• player stash in town; can share items between characters
• size of gold stack increased way above 5000 so your inventory doesn't have to be jammed full of piles of gold when you're rich
• plenty of new content, like additional character classes, spells, unique monsters, rare items, etc.

@savage: Amen to this. I replay D1 w/ that mod once every year or two

@savage: Agree as well, this mod is fabulous and I'm happy to see that the GOG version of Diablo 1 is compatible.

The sanctity of this place has been fouled.

Well, good on them for doing that work. Doing the lord's work!

Page me if Diablo 2 also becomes available - IMO, everything Diablo 1 does, 2 does better. :b

I am super-stoked for the Warcrafts 1 and 2 to eventually be released, though!

@savage: Ended up checking that mod out, and I'm honestly really impressed by the quality of life improvements alone. This might end with me doing a full playthrough depending on how my repetitive stress injury feels about it. Diablo is probably the single worst kind of game for that.

I'd love to see all of Blizzard's pre-WoW games on GOG. I know you can technically get a lot of them in DRM-free forms (outside of CD keys), but getting them legally can be rough. Not to mention the pre-Battle.net Client patches can be hard to find.

I accidentally tried to connect to Battle.net in StarCraft and Warcraft III before realizing they released updates that made them require the Battle.net Client. Now they're unplayable on my setups.

It's one I never played but watched my cousin play. I'm going to give it a shot. It's probably worth one playthrough.

I hear it's very different from the others in how harsh the game feels and that's got me interested.

Honestly in a lot of ways it's the best Diablo game. I think 2 is the better game in a purely objective sense, but the first Diablo is a pretty good example of executing successfully on a very specific concept. Really, if Blizzard wants ideas for what to make Diablo 4, then this is the game they should be looking at for inspiration. The farther they've moved away from it, the worse the games have gotten.

That is awesome. Would love to see GoG release a Mac OSX version!

I don't like GOG though, hopefully it will arrive elsewhere eventually. I mean, the game is cool, but not enough to make me want to join GOG.

I would've sworn this was available via Battle.net's "Classic Games" section. Seems I must have just been thinking of Diablo II. Awesome that it's available digitally now! I don't usually mess with GOG, but I may have to buy in on this one.

Is it just me or didn't Diablo 1 age that well i could easily return to Diablo II but i am having a hard time enjoying this GOG version maybe i should check out the mod somebody linked in here.

I just finished the game on Normal. I might try it modded now with Beelzebub but I wanted to at least see what the vanilla experience was like.

There are Nightmare and Hell difficulties in Diablo 1 but you have to use a trick to play them in Single Player.

After installing the Beelzebub mod the game got way better just good quality of life stuff, i recommend it. And the new classes are a neat extra.

They did it! Blizzard agreed to have the Hellfire expansion included with the game, as a free update!

They still like to pretend it was never an official expansion even though it was at the time, but at least it's there and supports all the enhancements GOG made for the base game.

So happy about Hellfire getting included in this package! WHOO HOO!

Nice! I may have to go grab this!