GIVE THE DEVIL HELL
Blizzard Entertainment (now Activision Blizzard) has an uncanny ability to make some of the best games in genres I actively dislike. Warcraft, StarCraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone can all go to hell. The classic Diablo belongs to one of the strangest RPG subgenres of all: the action RPG, a deviation from the original idea of role-playing games altogether. Those can go to hell too.
The RPGs I tend to appreciate are open experiences, rich with choice and possibility. Diablo is the exact opposite. Possibilities are limited. You don’t create a character; you select and name one of three predefined archetypes and outfit them in the village of Tristram. From there, you plunge headfirst into the dungeon beneath the cathedral, slaughtering wave after wave of demons and undead. It’s dark, claustrophobic, and relentless.
The story is minimal. Each floor has a randomized layout—slightly disappointing, but encouraging replayability with different characters. Sixteen levels down, in hell itself, awaits the Devil. Your task is quite literally to go to hell and destroy him.
That’s it. It’s beginner-friendly and brutally straightforward. Much of the tactical thinking normally associated with RPGs is stripped away. What remains is confined to combat roles: warrior, rogue, or sorcerer. As a near-novice to the genre (I’ve played Grim Dawn, but not much else), I chose the warrior. Attributes govern only how much damage you take, how hard you hit, how accurate you are, and how many spells you can cast before running dry.
At first, it all struck me as severely limited—borderline brain-dead. But when I finally gave Diablo an honest chance, I discovered that with the right mindset, it can be both engaging and atmospheric as hell.
Beneath the surface simplicity, I found a form of strategy—not traditional, but no less demanding. In Tristram, preparation matters. You plan your descent: equipment, weapons suited for upcoming floors, and how much healing to bring. Not too much—you need inventory space for loot.
Once underground, I was surprised by how involved I became. Every step required weighing aggression against retreat. I studied the environment, memorizing doorways and corridors that could serve as chokepoints. One enemy is rarely a problem; ten are fatal. Advance too recklessly into the compact darkness and you’ll attract an unmanageable horde—and die within seconds.
The darkness hides more than enemies. Treasures and clues leading to minor side quests are easily missed unless you carefully scan the environment with the mouse cursor. Deciding when to teleport back to the surface is a constant dilemma. Push too far and you may become trapped by skeletons and zombies, unable to escape. They will slaughter you effortlessly—and all progress since the last save is lost.
The atmosphere is amplified tenfold by a phenomenal soundtrack: soothing acoustic guitar, manic electric riffs, synthetic noise, and exotic rhythms. The music alternately urges me forward and scares the living hell out of me. It feels dynamic without actually being so—like an eternal struggle between God and Satan. Four distinct domains grow progressively more infernal, accompanied by music that deepens the sense of fire and brimstone. Some tracks sound like they escaped from an asylum.
The game’s age is unmistakable. A few quality-of-life features we take for granted today are missing. A storage chest alone would dramatically improve the experience. As it stands, excess gear must be sold or dumped on the ground in Tristram, which is clumsy and hard to manage.
Leveling is dull—a handful of points to put into your attributes is all you get. Certain crucial equipment—such as resistance to fire or magic—is extremely rare. Without it, the lower levels become a nightmare. A possibility to raise these stats through leveling would've been welcome.
A more consistent flaw is the archaic movement system. Mechanically, the game is almost laughably simple: you left-click to walk around and attack. But mouse input doesn’t sync well with your character’s movement. Limited to eight directions, your hero awkwardly sways between diagonal and straight paths. It feels clumsy and looks ridiculous. Worse, the cursor often fails to register the enemy you click on. Instead of attacking, your hero mockingly dances around the monster.
Still, I don’t want to dwell on the negatives. I opened this text by dismissing Blizzard outright. I even told their games to go to hell. But now that I’ve gone to hell myself—and played on Diablo’s terms—I’ve had to reconsider.
There is enduring value here, built on repetition and atmosphere rather than complexity or narrative depth. There’s something feverish about the experience. As you push onward, a wordless story emerges in tandem with your own emotional state. The result is an unmistakable classic.
And now that I’m already down here in hell with Blizzard, I might as well reconsider their other genre excursions too—except Overwatch and Hearthstone. Online games belong to a deeper circle of hell, one even the Devil refuses to enter.
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