TL1 is pretty simple compared to 2, kinda like how Diablo 1 feels compared to 2: one town, one dungeon with 4 different themes after a number of levels (can’t remember if 5 or 10). Hell, that one of the heroes of TL1 became the big bad of TL2 is another nod to Diablo 1-2

They did indeed. That game had its problems, but I liked it. I remember seeing it years later, after the game had been sold to… I wanna say it was a Korean company. They massacred the writing and the game is unrecognizable now, which is sad.

While David Brevik did move to GGG, he is not a dev there. He is an “advisor” and was originally hired to oversee their product exportation to China. Now GGG founded their company making games on the D2 engine, and were big fans of it, but I am pretty sure Brevik is the only D2 team member that went over, and he isn’t a dev there, at least not fully.