Who remembers the original Diablo? The classic rogue-like that took the formula of that classic and basically just updated the graphics and audio, angled the camera slightly, and bam; off to kill the devil you go. Yeah, that one. Remember Sega’s last console, the Sega Dreamcast? Good, good. Well, set aside that copy of Record of Lodoss War because Diablo is coming to the Dreamcast to claim its throne. It is riding into the land of Sega on a steed called Linux.
Close to Linux but Not Linux, it is Using BSD Based SDK’s
The magic you are seeing in the video is thanks to KallistiOS. That weird name is a software development kit (SDK) for the Dreamcst and is making this port of Diablo possible. It is not perfect but, man is it cool.
Independent homebrew developers have to use unofficial software like KallistiOS to make magic happen because Sega has not released any official SDK’s to the public. Talk about an amazing gift to the community if they did that. Sadly, the only company that has done that, in gaming at least, was not a gaming company – Mattel. They released the Atari Jaguar in its entirety to the public, minus copyrights and trademarks for things like “Atari”. This happened in 1998. Seriously, the best good will to video game fans was from a toy company. Original creator's video, not mine, please be respectful when interacting as they are a fan too
Clearly a Work in Progress
This is a rough port so far. The developer, azi_hassan on Twitter is working on this in their spare time so obviously, please keep comments and interactions respectful. They are a fan just like you and a bit of patience and a ton of encouragement can go a long way.
Currently the game apparently crashes when saving. I am no tech wizard so please remember that patience thing.
It looks like the culprit is size of save files. I have no idea if that is something that can be shrunk somehow but it seems like a big road block to overcome for Diablo on Dreamcast to be truly enjoyed (I am not one to “one man” this type of game, not now, I am old, out of shape and like naps).
Were you a fan of Diablo? I remember being horribly addicted to it back in the day, I still load it up to play at least a couple of times a year.