Median XL

Mod Spotlights are intended to shine a light on amazing modifications developed by various communities and individuals. Mods can be an excellent way to revisit an older classic, find fun in a favorite game again, or to modernize a game that didn't click in it's original form. Throughout gaming history, mods have played an important role in innovation, with many spawning true games or even genres on their own. It's important to celebrate the dedicated community of modders across all different genres as they are in many cases volunteering their time to bring games back up to modern standards or take risks that gaming companies wouldn't choose to.

Median XL is a Diablo 2 total conversion mod originally released in 2003 under the title of Median. The mod has undergone many transformations since then, with each iteration adding more ambitious changes. The mod is effectively a brand-new game utilizing the bones of Diablo 2, with some quests, models and NPCs staying untouched but largely everything else has been changed. The game expands on what made D2 great and cranks up certain elements well beyond the craziest levels of gameplay achieved in the original game.

Mod Overview

Before covering what has sort of content changes that have been made, it's important to also appreciate how many changes to the underpinnings of the game engine have been accomplished. Developers have overhauled many different structural aspects of the engine; providing increased resolution support, higher FPS support, allowances for more monsters and spell effects to be loaded at once and removal of various other caps to further support the insane levels of damage and monster density. Quality of life is delivered with automatic gold pickup, new hot-keys, UI changes and an expanded stash and inventory.

The skill tree has been completely revamped, with all classes having a great diversity of skills spread across many different categories. In addition to class skills, there are unlockable skills available to all classes once different challenges have been completed. This provides a breadth of options to build a character. While not every build is able to complete the hardest content that game has to offer, it allows freedom to build a character and at least make progression through nightmare and into hell difficulty without having to follow a rigid path.

The journey through all five acts contains tons of new bosses and areas to explore. Beyond the normal areas, there are plenty of endgame activities that have been introduced with certain challenges being available as low as level 45 in the game, which provide powerful charms for players to further enhance their strength. Once characters have progressed even further, different dungeons and rifts are unlocked, again providing special rewards and farming opportunities.

Median adds many new types of enemies, reusing diablo 2 models and providing monsters with a more diverse range of skills to use against the player. Additionally, sprites from other games have been used to increase the model variety even further. During a recent playthrough, I saw sprites from the first Diablo, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and a bunch of others that I couldn't identify.

The mod stays true to the idea of uniques, set items and runewords but again totally reworks how they are implemented. There are Tiered Uniques that have 4 tiers and can be upgraded in the cube to grow along with the player. In higher levels, Sacred Uniques can be found, increasing player power even further. Runewords span from words requiring only a single rune, helping with early progressions, to super powerful words requiring a bunch of endgame runes that can cap off a build.

Crafting has been greatly expanded upon. For small changes to existing gear (unique or otherwise) players can purchase mystic orbs from vendors in towns to round out certain stats that they may be lacking on gear. These orbs do not provide huge bonuses in themselves, but up to five can be added to an item, providing resists or other stats that may need a little bit of help. For crafting items from scratch, players can use special shrines dropped by monsters to create all new items with randomized stats within a certain category.

Development and Community

For over twenty years now, the game has been receiving content updates and huge changes overtime. It's gone through different developers and had its changes in direction, but the commitment to continue to deliver something new and interesting for the community has been very consistent over that time. Currently the game is on it's fourty first seaon, with an average two to three seasons being released each year. Each of these content updates brings more and more changes to the game and always serves to switch things up.

There is a dedicated community for those who wish to gather information or get involved themselves. The Median website hosts game documentation, forums and a good amount of reference material to get folks into the game. There is also a pretty active Discord and a handful of Youtubers who provide build guides and other content to get new players started or up to speed with the game.

Additional Resources