Diablo 2 Resurrected

Diablo 2 Resurrected Store Page

Diablo 2 Resurrected is my first shipped AAA title. I spent 8 months helping close off this project as a Software Engineer Co-op on the gameplay/ui team. However, everyone wears many hats at Vicarious Visions/Blizzard, so I also worked in many areas not directly owned by our team, such as assisting with Nintendo Switch development, and maintaining the audio system.

Screenshot of Diablo 2 Resurrected UI from the official press kit

Diablo 2 Resurrected is built directly on top of the original Diablo 2, meaning that I worked in a custom C++ engine throughout this project. On the gameplay/UI team, I worked with the existing UI metadata system to create new UI features and iterate on existing UI. Some of these features included the new notification/toast system added in D2R, menu controller support, and many others.

I also worked on maintaining different areas of gameplay, including in the original D2 gameplay systems, and in the new D2R translation layer.

Screenshot of Diablo 2 Resurrected gameplay from official press kit

I also worked in some areas outside of my team, such as supporting development on the Nintendo Switch, maintaining the audio system which had previously been converted to FMOD from the original DirectSound implementation, and implementing Input Method Editor (IME) support, which interfaces directly with Windows and allows text input from Korean, Japanese, and Chinese players.

It was amazing to be able to work on such a legendary game as my first AAA shipped product. I am especially happy I got to own large features such as the IME, and work in many different areas such as gameplay, UI, audio, console, and Windows.

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Michael Barba
Gameplay Programmer at Lightforge Games

Gameplay Programmer at Lightforge Games working on an unannounced project. Graduated in Spring 2022, and previously spent 8 months at Blizzard on the Diablo 2 Resurrected Gameplay/UI team as a co-op engineer.