Diablo 2 Resurrected: How to Identify Items

Throughout your travels in Sanctuary playing Diablo 2: Resurrected, you will come across many unidentified items. These items are covered by a red box in the player’s inventory and, instead of showing the item’s stat bonus, displays “Unidentified” in large red text. Not only are the stats not visible, but the item also cannot be equipped, either. Identifying items is an integral part of Diablo 2: Resurrected’s game mechanics and learning how to identify items early on is an absolute must. Unidentified items will almost always improve your character more than items that don’t need identifying.

In this guide, we will show you not only how to identify items to Diablo 2: Resurrected, but how you can identify items for free at the beginning of your journey, allowing you to save the items necessary for identifying powerful loot later on in the game.

How to Identify Items in Diablo 2: Resurrected

The ‘Scroll of Identify’ is the key to identifying unidentified items and is very commonly dropped by all enemies throughout the game. If you’re running low, however, you can also purchase Scroll of Identify from vendors throughout Sanctuary for a reasonably low price.

Open your inventory, highlight your Scroll of Identify, use your interaction button (right-click by default on PC) and then select your unidentified item. The item will now display its relevant stat bonuses and will be equippable by your character, as long as your character has the correct stats and/or class for that specific item.

Scroll of Identify take up item slots, which can become a nuisance later on in the game when loot is abundant and your inventory fills up fast. Luckily, the ‘Tome of Identify’ is an item purchasable from vendors that is able to hold up to 20 Scroll of Identify. The Tome of Identify only takes up 2 inventory slots, saving you a maximum of 18 item slots! Purchase a Tome of Identify as soon as you possibly can and drag your current Scrolls of Identify into the Tome. Any future Scrolls of Identify you pick up will be automatically placed inside the Tome fo Identify until the maximum of 20 is reached.

How to Identify Items for Free

You will undoubtedly use Scrolls of Identify constantly throughout your playtime in Diablo 2: Resurrected and you can sometimes find yourself running out faster than you would expect. Luckily, items can be identified for free partway through Act I of the campaign. Complete the ‘Search for Cain’ quest to rescue the iconic Deckard Cain and he will settle down in the Rogue Encampment. As thanks for rescuing the old scholar, he will identify any of your items for free indefinitely. Simply talk to him and select the ‘Identify Items’ option. Deckard will appear in Act II regardless of if you saved him during Act I, but we highly recommend you complete ‘Search for Cain’ as soon as you can, as it’s highly beneficial in the long run.

We recommend you use a Scroll of Identify if you’re in an area full of enemies, especially if you are in desperate need of an upgrade for a particular slot. Should you have an inventory full of unidentified items or you’re in a rest area, take a trip to Deckard in Rogue Sanctuary and identify your items before you head out again. The Scrolls of Identify you saved by identifying loot for free could be the difference between life and death in high-combat areas.

Brave the dangers of Sanctuary alone or with up to eight friends in Diablo 2: Resurrected, available for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and Nintendo Switch.