Three Diablo-style Games to Play
With the controversy surrounding Activision Blizzard these days, it’s hard to go back to a lot of their games, especially the likes of Diablo. With the recent release of Diablo 2: Resurrected and Diablo 3 being the only newer Diablo that people have had to play for ages – and people not wanting to part with their hard-earned money to buy either Diablo 2: R or Diablo 3, due to Blizzard’s terrible work conditions and harassment of its employees – what can you play instead?
Good question!
So, I’ve found 3 alternatives for you to dive into that may/or may not scratch that Diablo itch.
Set in the Grim Dark Fantasy of Warhammer Fantasy, Chaosbane launched to a pretty rough start. As bare-bones as possible in terms of features, and campaign, it was soon bolstered by a slew of new free updates – shake ups of the main campaign, and paid DLC – the updates added new features and smoothed out existing ones, as well as giving away a campaign and a new class. There are now 5 classes, the game can be played solo or with up to 3 friends for a total of 4 players.
One of the stand-out features in Chaosbane is the visceral combat system, which lets you fling enemies using physics-based attacks and allows wizards to control certain spells with the right stick.
Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor Martyr
Neocore are no strangers to Diablo-style games, they make the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing games, and brought their signature gameplay to the 40K Universe with Martyr. Again, it launched as a fairly generic title that was decent enough, but lacked a certain polish. Thankfully, Neocore listened to all the feedback and rocked back out with a 2.0 update (plus many other updates) which brought the game back to life, and gave it a new coat of paint. Enjoying lots of new features, a slew of replay value, and a hefty expansion which introduced the Mechanicus to the game as a playable hero – Martyr is going strong still and a new playable character is on the way in 2022. One of the Adepta Sororitas – the Sisters of Battle.
Inquisitor Martyr can be played solo, or with up to 4 players across the campaign as well as smaller bite-sized missions for loot and levelling.
One of the stand-out features of the game is just how customisable the character classes are, and the way the game handles combat in general with an emphasis on fast and brutal action. You can also take cover, which for a Diablo-style game is different.
Grim Dawn: https://www.grimdawn.com/
Grim Dawn has been on my radar for a while now, a long while. I never got the chance to try it out on the PC, but I’ve been watching the game evolve since launch and seeing where it’s going to. I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic and sci-fi in general as well as Diablo-style games. So, Grim Dawn pushes all my buttons right from the start. Developed by former members of the team who brought us Titan Quest, Grim Dawn was originally just on the PC and has been enjoying a really great time since launch, with many new features, lots of Quality-of-Life changes and even more.
It’s got two massive expansions, and a bunch of new character classes.
On December 3rd it comes to Xbox One finally.
Grim Dawn is single player, or co-op for up to 4 players.
Out of all the Diablo-style games mentioned here, Grim Dawn is the one that I’m most excited to finally get my hands on.
