What is so special about this soundtrack is that it is amazingly ambient, even while only listening to one song at a time. Except for the final two tracks 'Coda' and 'Roger and Me' which are relatively upbeat, the composer did an amazing job at keeping the whole soundtrack dark and grim, but also creating a lot of diversity between the different acts and their respective songs. They do however have one thing in common: their soundtracks are all creepy as hell. Each of these acts has its own distinct kind of atmosphere, and they differ a lot from each other. The Diablo 2 soundtrack can be roughly divided into four parts, representing the four acts that the (original) game has. So, they hired composer Matt Uelmen to create a truly haunting musical piece of work. Because of this, Blizzard North knew they had to deliver one hell of a soundtrack. Of course you can make extensive use of sound effects, and to be honest the sound of bones scraping over the floor is pretty scary, but this can only go so far before it becomes a parody of itself. So, one had to be creative with the resources that were available at that time, meaning that they had to put all the shock effect into the sounds, seeing that the graphics were pretty limiting. However, back in 2000 when Diablo II was released, there were no amazing graphics to back up the game. These games have the technology on their side, because they can make use of various graphical effects for a heightened shock effect. Frightening games are pretty standard nowadays, just think of F.E.A.R. Interestingly, this emotion can also be turned around and used as a positive incentive for gamers in order to make a game more compelling and immersive. In its nature, it is a negative emotion which is often linked to a negative event, and is commonly associated with things that are unknown to people. Review Summary: Diablo's back, and he's got an amazing soundtrack to back him up.įear is such a peculiar thing.