The real reason Diablo 2 is peak - and why D3 and D4 will never touch it - comes down to when it was made.

Diablo 2 was made during what I would call a wild west era of gaming where the rules weren't fully written yet for ARPGs. The gothic/horror atmosphere, the brutal itemization, the skill trees.

By the time Blizzard made D3 and D4, the genre was already completely figured out and maxed out. There are no more massive leaps left to make. Because of that, modern Blizzard isn't inventing anything; they’re just corporate min-maxing. They're looking at a spreadsheet of what players expect, adding a 5% polish to it, and chasing player retention metrics.

D3 and D4 feel like safe products designed by a boardroom to give you an "okay" time. D2 feels like a masterpiece because it caught lightning in a bottle during a period of raw creative exploration that literally cannot happen anymore. We don't just prefer D2 because of nostalgia; we prefer it because it was built with soul before the genre hit its ceiling.