Diablo is available to play for free in your web browser

[Shawn Knight]

Recap: Diablo landed on December 31, 1996, for Windows PC before finding its way to Mac OS and PlayStation in 1998. A sequel, fittingly named Diablo II, launched in mid-2000 but it’d be another 12 years before Diablo III’s arrival. The original managed to sell two million copies but its sequels would prove far more successful with Blizzard selling six million and 20 million copies of Diablo II and Diablo III, respectively.

Diablo, the beloved action role-playing game from Blizzard, is now available to play in your web browser courtesy of RivSoft.

Essentially the shareware version, the browser game (dubbed Devilution) is reconstructed from the original Diablo source code – complete with bugs and poorly written code. Should you own Diablo, you can use its main data file to unlock the full version in your browser. If not, you can grab a copy over on GOG for $9.99 which includes the Hellfire expansion.

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering if this is even legal. According to the development team, they aren’t really sure.

Under the DMCA, reverse-engineering has exceptions for the purpose of documentation and interoperability. Devilution provides the necessary documentation needed to achieve the latter. However, it falls into an entirely gray area. The real question is whether or not Blizzard deems it necessary to take action.

Here’s to hoping Blizzard doesn’t take action.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/81237-diablo-available-play-free-web-browser.html

 

[SG736F6]

Cease and desist letter in 3, 2, 1...

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Is DIV even still coming, 18 months without a peep.

 

[amghwk]

Knowing Blizzard, they will soon come down hard on this.

 

[yRaz]

They will get the rights to it and then fill it with microtransactions

 

[Nero7]

Dude, you gotta own the gme and drop a file in the website to be able to play.

This is not play for free this is play in your browser if you own it.

 

[MannerMauler]

I think they might've gotten that cease and desist letter, if you click on the shareware version, you get a 404.

 

[Mugsy]

I have D1 installed already (patched to run under Win7 at high resolution) and was able to provide my MPQ file. It worked.

If you have D1 but were never able to get it to work under Win7/8/10, the web player is a great way to get a working game again, but there's no way to mod it.

 

[erickmendes]

They will get the rights to it and then fill it with microtransactions

Exclusive Walking Pack: 10$ - Let you walk for 5 minutes.

 

[Jyrkz]

Omg I works flawlessly on my phone! Alsoit looks super solid on it ahah

 

[Mugsy]

FOLLOW-UP: I don't know if my (Firefox) Browser is at fault, but the emulation seems to be very buggy.

I started a new game. Everything looked & worked perfectly. I cleared Level-1 (using my official MPQ file off my CD) and tried to return to town.

I first got the "Decend" (stairs down) image and the Loading progress bar rapidly flicker-filled a dozen times, then switched to the "Accend" (town) image, same rapid flicker-fill of the Loading bar, and when the Dungeon entrance appeared, my character was nowhere to be seen, I couldn't move, and in the top-left corner, it said "Level-159".

I saved & reloaded but it did not fix it.

I started a new game with the same character, went down to Level-1 and the map was all screwed up (doors that could not be opened or floating in mid room and rooms I could not access at all.)

I'll try again with another browser, but so far, the emulation seems to be too buggy to risk attempting an entire campaign.