New Project Diablo 2 update breathes fresh life into Blizzard's beloved ARPG, inspired by Path of Exile

At this point, Project Diablo 2 has easily become my preferred way to play Blizzard's classic. While D2 remains one of the best RPGs of all time, and Diablo 2 Resurrected gives it a fresh coat of paint, the community team behind PD2 has been delivering on its promise of updating and improving it "as if development never ceased." The comprehensive mod is a mammoth undertaking that adds all manner of features, from new items, skills, and enemies to quality-of-life upgrades, and even a full endgame mapping system and uber bosses in the style of Path of Exile.

Project Diablo 2 Season 12 has just kicked off, making now the ideal time to check in. Not only are there plenty of additions that I'll walk through momentarily, but it also means the mod's community is buzzing and active, meaning you'll be able to easily get advice and tips if you're not sure what to do next. And there's a lot to do; the PD2 team has been working on its systems for five years, balancing builds and endgame activities to ensure the core of Lord of Destruction remains relevant while also offering much more diverse maps, group-oriented dungeons, and the especially challenging uber bosses that act as your build's ultimate test.

Season 12 introduces a new unique map called The City of Ureh, and its benefit is that monsters found there will drop socketed items, with the final boss guaranteeing you a socketed unique. The other major change is an overhaul to ranged combat courtesy of quality modifiers and sockets for arrows and bolts.

There are all manner of new quivers and bolts to discover, but there are plenty more additions out there if you aren't looking to run a ranged build, along with extra crafting recipes. Because it's Project Diablo 2's fifth anniversary, the team has also thrown in some "very rare special drops." These are cosmetic variants of existing uniques to give them a fresh, stylish look, chosen by a community draw.

The stash has been overhauled; there's a new search feature that lets you look for any text in an item's description, and it even works across multiple tabs. Potions and gems can now be upgraded from the stash directly. The loot filter has been given the ability to play sounds to notify you of specific drops that match your settings, much like Path of Exile.

There's a whole lot more to discover, too, with a lengthy list of hundreds of balance changes alongside smaller tweaks and fixes to be found in the full patch notes. Among the most notable inclusions are a rework to Blizzard to make its damage more consistent, and a redesigned Exploding Shot that causes smaller explosions to spread out behind any monsters hit by the initial arrow.

Project Diablo 2 Season 12, 'Suffering,' is live now. You can head here to install the mod, but keep in mind that you must own legitimate copies of both Diablo 2 and its Lord of Destruction expansion in order to play.