Features

Hellfire was considered a failure by many Diablo players. Such players would argue that:

The game's atmosphere was not as effective as the dark, gothic environments of the first.

New sound effects for new monsters are at a much lower bitrate. One set is only existing effects, resampled and distorted by the lower bit-rate (Goatmen - Satyr Lord)

Most monster designs were uninspired, and of little relevance to the source material of the first game (for example, a certain enemy in Hellfire resembles a leaping pumpkin with feet and glowing eyes).

The majority of the new spells were unimpressive, as they had a tendency to be simple modifications to existing spells (Firewall -> Lightning Wall), or convenience spells, such as Search and Warp.

Hellfire had no support for Battle.net, the online service utilized by Blizzard's online multiplayer games. This is arguably the most flawed aspect of the Hellfire expansion, given the impressive popularity of the first Diablo.

Frustrating pathing problems, especially pronounced in the Crypt levels, resulting in "dithering" behavior while trying to pursue ranged-attack monsters (e.g., liches).

In general many of the game design problems can be traced to internal political struggles between the studio contracted to produce the game, Synergistic Software, and Blizzard North the owner of the franchise and Sierra On-Line the corportation which owned both game development studios at that time. The essence of the struggle was that Blizzard program directors did not want to release an add on pack for Diablo, and instead focus on Diablo II and Sierra wanted to capitalize on the Diablo name and make some major money between the two major product releases. The compromise was that the Multiplayer feature would not be supported as it would require work at Blizzard to support on the online gaming system. The art and character attributes were all subject approval/disapproval by the Blizzard game director leading to feuds between art designers, and game designers. In part there was a desire by the Blizzard team to not use game play or art that would appear in Diablo II. This squabbling delayed the release of the game by a month, and forced the art and level designs to be redone three times, with much art that the Synergistic team liked and tested well to be tossed. In the end the game programmers got tired of waiting and implemented the multiplayer features but since they didn't control the Blizzard site, it only works on a local area network. Although the Barbarian is in the second patch for the game, it unfortunately disables the multiplayer hack. This was due to a miscommunication within the Synergistic Programming team who had turned it off at first to appease Blizzard North. In the end it was desired for local area access to be enabled for all patched versions but that is not the case. Thus the second patch enables the Barbarian and disables the multiplayer version. The easter egg character designs were not included because the programming team was unable to convince the art team to help out. This was in part due to the art team being asked to do their part 3 times. Still game play is unaffected by looking at recycled art. Fortunately for Sierra Hellfire was an extremely profitable venture due to the low budget used to produce it.

The Hellfire storyline was ignored by Blizzard in Diablo II and neither Blizzard nor Sierra mentions Hellfire anywhere on their website, nor was Hellfire included in the Diablo Battle Chest.

Two additional characters â€“ the bard and the barbarian â€“ and two additional quests can be enabled with a special text-file edit in your Hellfire installation directory named COMMAND.txt with the following text:

cowquest;theoquest;bardtest;multitest;barbariantest

As test characters, these warriors have new skills and attributes. The bard can use two one handed weapons, one in each hand. The Barbarian can hold certain two-handed weapons in one hand and carry a shield in the other. They do not have unique character graphics developed for them, appearing in-game as the rogue and the warrior, respectively.

The hidden quests are the theo quest and the cow quest. The cow quest appears first by turning the farmer, who allows you to unlock the hive, into a "complete nut" wearing a cow suit. After giving you the rune bomb to open the hive level, he will send you off to recover his suit, "the brown one not the gray" which can be found on the fourth level of the hive. Once you return with the brown suit he gives you the Bovine Plate. If this quest is not activated the farmer will simply give you the rune bomb at level 18. The cow quest was based on the internet jokes that were played on folks using the original Diablo, where upon players were directed to do a series of silly things to unlock the secret cow quest. The team at Synergistic thought it would be funny if in fact there was an actual cow quest.

The theo quest is given by a little girl standing by a tree on the witch's island. You must kill the Hork Demon to retrieve Theo and acquire the reward. If this quest is not activated the Hork Demon drops the amulet himself with no diverting storyline.

None of the easter eggs were communicated to the Blizzard team, but all were tested to ensure that they did not interfere with the regular game play by Synergistic. This led to even more bad blood between the two studios and may in fact be the cause for why Synergistic was folded into the Sierra Studio.

Hellfire was the only official expansion pack released for Diablo.