Diablo 3 is the first game to render Diablo 2 obsolete.
With Diablo 2 and its 2001 expansion, Lord of Destruction, Blizzard set a standard for loot-based action RPGs that everyone else struggled to meet. There were better looking games over the course of the following decade, but almost none had the same unifying aesthetic, or the sense of place that Blizzard built into the wilds surrounding Khurast or Lut Gholein, or Hell, for that matter. Few could match the world-building that Blizzard wove into every corner of Diablo 2, from weapons to monsters to stashes and chests. And every game from the last 11 years, even the Torchlight series, created by veterans from Diablo 2 developers Blizzard North, failed to build a loot system as persistently rewarding and aggressively addicting.
Other games did some things – well, if not better, perhaps newer – but Diablo 2 has never felt irrelevant. With Diablo 3, Blizzard has taken the fundamentals of the franchise, broken them apart and rebuilt them into an action RPG so refined and compulsively playable that it's done the unthinkable: It's finally rendered its predecessor a footnote.
With Diablo 2 and its 2001 expansion, Lord of Destruction, Blizzard set a standard for loot-based action RPGs that everyone else struggled to meet. There were better looking games over the course of the following decade, but almost none had the same unifying aesthetic, or the sense of place that Blizzard built into the wilds surrounding Khurast or Lut Gholein, or Hell, for that matter. Few could match the world-building that Blizzard wove into every corner of Diablo 2, from weapons to monsters to stashes and chests. And every game from the last 11 years, even the Torchlight series, created by veterans from Diablo 2 developers Blizzard North, failed to build a loot system as persistently rewarding and aggressively addicting.
Other games did some things – well, if not better, perhaps newer – but Diablo 2 has never felt irrelevant. With Diablo 3, Blizzard has taken the fundamentals of the franchise, broken them apart and rebuilt them into an action RPG so refined and compulsively playable that it's done the unthinkable: It's finally rendered its predecessor a footnote.
From a thousand feet up, Diablo 3 resembles Diablo Past, more
or less. It's still a game defined almost entirely by clicking on things
– you click on the ground to move your character to that point, you
click on items to pick them up, you click on enemies to make them dead.
Enemies yield randomly generated loot. Loot, more than levels or
character progression, remains the beating heart of Diablo 3.
While all of this is familiar, Diablo 3 quickly makes scandalous departures from previous games. Skill points and attributes are out. Instead, each class's attributes increase automatically when a new level is gained, and new skills unlock over time at specific levels.
Potions are a thing of the past – replaced by one-time health globe pickups dropped by downed enemies. Town portal scrolls? Gone. Magic weapons already have their properties laid bare. Rare and unique items merely require casting time to identify, rather than a depletable resource.
While all of this is familiar, Diablo 3 quickly makes scandalous departures from previous games. Skill points and attributes are out. Instead, each class's attributes increase automatically when a new level is gained, and new skills unlock over time at specific levels.
Potions are a thing of the past – replaced by one-time health globe pickups dropped by downed enemies. Town portal scrolls? Gone. Magic weapons already have their properties laid bare. Rare and unique items merely require casting time to identify, rather than a depletable resource.
Server issues
It's no secret that Diablo 3's launch night went rougher than anyone would have liked, this reviewer and Blizzard included. Things are bad when there's a Twitter account named after your most common error message.
For the first week of Diablo 3's release, it eloquently demonstrated all of the pitfalls of the "always online" requirements that so angered consumers since its announcement. I had repeated issues signing into my account throughout the week – I have three identically named characters in my account because of server-side character storage and creation issues. I was greeted several times by a general chat message informing me that Blizzard was taking down Diablo 3 servers for general maintenance while I was playing the game.
Ordinarily, my position as Reviews Editor at Polygon is that we review a game as it exists on release day, because our responsibility is to our audience. While we do all we can to maintain due diligence with regards to giving a game every opportunity to deliver, we choose your wallet and your time before the benefit of the doubt.
But Diablo 3 is different. It's different because Blizzard has a track record spanning almost two decades of games that have become institutions, and they've also run the most popular MMO around for almost eight years. Put simply, Blizzard, more than any developer around, has earned that benefit of the doubt. I believe that the server issues will be resolved. With that in mind, it does both our audience and Diablo 3 a disservice to dwell on that aspect in this review.
Diablo 3 has set an absurdly high bar for action RPGs
It's rare that high profile sequels take 11 years to come to fruition, but Diablo 3
feels like all that time meant something. That all along, Blizzard was
thinking about the hows and whys of the series, that nothing was sacred
in their efforts to make something that lived up to the hype.Games this thoughtfully crafted don't happen very often, and the care that Blizzard has taken with Diablo 3 shows in every facet of its design and execution. It might not be perfect, but after 45 hours, I'm not sure where it missteps, and after 45 hours, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. Diablo 3 is almost evil in how high a bar it's set for every PC action RPG to follow, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that bar remain for a very long time.
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