The Diablo series may be known for a lot of things, and cows walking around with weapons is actually one of them. While a level filled with axe-wielding cows may seem like one of gaming's biggest urban myths, these bipedal bovines actually have a long history with the franchise.
Ahead of Diablo II: Resurrected releasing in the future, it's important to remember how much of an impact the original had on the series. This isn't necessarily in terms of gameplay, classes, or visuals - but in the often-discussed secret level that let players fight against hordes of axe-wielding cows. Despite some players (and forums) alleging the whole thing was an urban myth, a lot of players continued being able to find a way into a dimension full of cattle carrying axes.
Sharing video game secrets has become more prevalent now, but when Diablo 2 released in 2000, it wasn't quite so easy. This led to numerous rumors of a secret axe-wielding cow dimension in the game. These were no ordinary cows, though, but rather demonic bovines running around on two hooves and hacking at players with big axes. Admittedly, a lot of players were skeptical of the killer cows, since the whole thing had started as a rumor for the original Diablo. However, this rumor was so widespread that developers at Blizzard heard it and decided to actually put a secret axe-wielding cow level into Diablo 2.
Diablo's History Of Axe-Wielding Cows
Since then, axe-wielding cows have become a perpetuating joke in the Diablo series - as well as other Blizzard games. An event was held in World of Warcraft as a callback to Diablo's killer cows, and Diablo 3 even had a weapon which allowed players to summon ghost cattle carrying halberds.
Even now, Diablo 3 continues getting updates that add in new skills, vanity items, and more. The Bovine Bardiche is a weapon that can drop in the game, and it's a nice nod to all the axe-wielding cow rumors of yesteryear. This weapon could be used to summon four halberd-wielding ghost cows, which could attack enemies for 15 seconds. Players could also transmute and destroy the weapon in order to access a portal to the Not The Cow Level (which was weird in its own right and allowed players to speak the the ghost of the Cow King and Cow Queen).
So, the axe-wielding cow dimension may seem like an urban myth - and it certainly started out as one. However, since then, it's become a memorable running joke in Diablo games.