by theygamesLooking for some games like Diablo to keep you busy during the current Diablo dearth? A fully fledged sequel is probably not going to be in our eager hands for another couple of years – if that. That means there’s a long time to wait for the next dose of ARPG looting, and while Diablo 3 is great and all, sometimes you need to play something new.
Well, that’s where we come in, with a list of some of the best games like Diablo for you to dive into. That means you can get a fix of hitting stuff, leveling up, and wearing unreasonably jagged and oversized shoulder pauldrons, you lucky thing.
It’s not enough to simply hit things and level up though, oh no, lots of games have that now, it’s almost standard practice. Our list of games like Diablo also factors in features like the camera angle, the world setting, tone, and more. No matter what it is that’s landed the game on the list though; you can be sure that it’ll help you forget all about that very, very distant Diablo 4 release date, at least for a little bit.
The best games like Diablo are:
Path of Exile
Path of Exile is probably the most well-known entry on this list. It’s taken a few years, but PoE is now a massive, fully-fledged alternative to Diablo, and an exceptionally deep experience in its own right. Better yet, it manages to take the formula laid out by games like Diablo and turn it into one of the best MMOs on PC. Even more impressive is the fact that it’s free-to-play with a model that’s about as fair as they come. There are countless PoE builds and styles of play to experiment with, and developer Grinding Gear Games is constantly updating the game with massive expansions every few months, not to mention the upcoming Path of Exile 2 release date.
Lost Ark
Few MMOs have the slick controls and rich character and loot progression of Lost Ark. It’s one of the most popular PC games of all time and regularly claims hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam. Oh, and it’s free, so there’s no reason not to give it a shot.
Perhaps most impressively, Lost Ark manages to deliver cinematic levels of scope and spectacle throughout its main story, with large-scale battles that feel like something out of Lord of the Rings. And that scale extends to the amount of roleplaying options available to you: nearly 20 Lost Ark classes across five archetypes, 60 levels to work through, pets, housing, crafting, and much more to master. If you want a game to consume your life like Diablo once did, then Lost Ark is the closest you’ll get.
Victor Vran
Victor Vran has you playing as the titular demon hunter on a quest to wipe out evil and whatnot, standard stuff story-wise. It’s got an excellent level of customisation regarding abilities, weapons, and skills, with plenty of directions you can take your demon-hunting build in. Everything is viewed from an isometric, top-down perspective so if you’re a veteran of older RPG games then you should have absolutely no issue adapting to Victor Vran.
Make no mistake, this is not a game on the same scale as Diablo or Path of Exile – the build diversity, game length, and world are limited – but if you’re after something light and accessible with a grim aesthetic to boot then this is definitely worth checking out. It’s also been updated a few times with DLC that adds in new attacks, new weapons, and even new maps.
Borderlands Series
The Borderlands series is an excellent choice if you’re looking for something that scratches the same itch as Diablo in terms of loot spilling forth from every enemy you slay. There are heaps of nods to Diablo-likes, including loot-hoarding minions, rarity tiers, and classes that you can min-max whichever way you want.
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Sure, it’s a bright, brash, and colourful series in terms of its tone, and switching from hack-and-slash gameplay to shooting might be a step too far. However, if you love nothing more than seeing a golden pillar of light bouncing out of a dead minion then you owe it to yourself to at least give Borderlands a go.
Book of Demons
Book of Demons probably has arguably the strongest aesthetic on this list. It’s all designed to look like a pop-up book, the kind you’d read when you were younger, or maybe the ones you read to your children or younger siblings. But it also deserves some plaudits for twisting diablo’s hack-and-slash gameplay into a deck-building hybrid.
The combat is simple, requiring you to play cards rather than mastering your hotkey bar. Still, things get more complex by having you manage special abilities and develop your character over countless dungeon runs. It’s a lot of fun, and there are actually two other games set in this world that are in development too, just in case you fall in love with it.
Torchlight 2
Torchlight 2 is a slightly more colourful take on the Diablo formula but make no doubt: this is an ARPG for veteran dungeon-crawlers just like Diablo. It’s got all of the same mechanics and components that have made the genre what it is, but you can do extra things like sending your pet to the market to sell off your loot on your behalf.
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It’s full of nice little touches like that, which help to make the game feel a little bit smoother and more friendly, plus there are loads of weapons and play styles to mess around with.
Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor – Martyr
If you’ve always wanted a game like Diablo set in the Warhammer 40,000 world then this really is the best option currently available. Inquisitor – Martyr has you choosing between an assassin, psychic, or armour-clad brute battling against the horrors of the 40k universe as one of the agents of the Imperium. The voice acting is about as dramatically overwrought as you’d expect of the 40K license, and there’s plenty of monolithic imperial-gothic architecture to gawp at as you fight to eliminate the corruption.
That means bullets, blades, and blazes as you carve a path through expertly designed enemies and bosses, all meant to horrify you before they succumb to the overwhelming might of your shoulder pads. Character progression is a little lacking, which leaves gameplay feeling stale after long sessions. Thankfully, there are some neat twists in the form of Uther’s Tarot, a system that lets you customise the galaxy map with everything from difficulty and objectives, to the kind of loot you want to drop. There are even some choose your own adventure-inspired cards that allow you a little more freedom within the main campaign.
Warhammer: Chaosbane
If you prefer fantasy to 40K then Warhammer: Chaosbane is for you. The gameplay, boss battles, class progression, and level design are all top-notch, and while itemisation is a little lacking, the gameplay is sharp and addictive.
It may not boast a Diablo game’s robust endgame or sharp controls, but Warhammer: Chaosbane is a superb action-RPG for as long as the main story lasts. You pick between five classic Warhammer classes and guide your chosen hero through a campaign that’s stained pus-yellow campaign by nasty Nurgle, smashing, cleaving, and burning through minions in dank sewers, embattled towns, and on castle ramparts.
All the loot drops are tailored to your class so there’s much less junk to sift through, which is a welcome change from the Diablo series. The leveling process itself is also very satisfying, with powerful new abilities at every unlock milestone – the upgrades never feel like skill tree-filler, despite there being a total of 180 across all the heroes. Additional difficulties and modes like boss rush await you after rolling the campaign credits, but there are enough Diablo-like thrills in the story to slake your thirst for hacking and slashing hellspawn.
The narrative is definitely painted by numbers Warhammer, but it’s a good vehicle for some of the areas you’ll get to visit over the 15-hour-long campaign, although the sewer sections definitely outstay their welcome.
Grim Dawn
If you want a truly in-depth and complex ARPG experience, then Grim Dawn is probably the one that fits the bill on this list of games like Diablo. There are lots of things worth noting about it, from the apocalyptic setting to the obscenely deep in-game lore, but the thing that makes Grim Dawn so enjoyable is its dual-class system.
As with any ARPG worth its salt, you get to choose a class, but what makes Grim Dawn different, is the ability to combine classes together to make a hybrid of your own. Add to that hundreds of item skills and you begin to see just how versatile Grim Dawn’s class system is. If you enjoy abyssal landscapes and inventing builds then Grim Dawn is absolutely for you.