You should give Path Of Exile a shot. It’s very much like Diablo, but it’s free to play (just pay for cosmetics).

I’ll throw my vote for Diablo 3. The game can be wicked addictive. I got the platinum trophy on PlayStation which was no quick feat. I just couldn’t stop playing. I would suggest choosing the Crusader to play as first. Super fun and has these flails that are specific weapons to his character. I had so much fun with the Akkhan armor set and the legendary flail called Fate of the Fell. Can take you well into the torment difficulty levels. Chef’s kiss of a game. I think people should really give it a chance if they like the Diablo style of game at all.

I played 1 through 3, including a bit of Resurrected. I definitely favour 2, though, having played it for probably thousands of hours.

I’d recommend any of them, 2 even more so, what’s with the release of Resurrected.

Diablo 1 has an almost old-school D&D feel to it, establishing many staples of the series, such as the itemization, the lore, the character stats and inventory management aspects, among others. It definitely feels a bit dated, but I’d recommend trying out DevilutionX (on GitHub) to mitigate that. It’s a project that adds many quality of life features and allows the game to feel a bit more of a modern experience, with larger resolutions, better and configurable controls, access to content that was cut from the original, and many other things.

Diablo 3 is the one I played the least, but I’d still say to give it a go. It’s more of an arcade experience, with combos, hordes of enemies, giant numbers on wearable loot and, as much as I could gather, a simpler experience all around. It’s probably the most hated entry on the series, but I still had loads of fun with it if only for lore reasons.

Diablo 2 is… well, Diablo 2. Depending on whether you play LoD (“Classic”, you could say), or Resurrected, it can be a very unbalanced game. Builds and classes are clearly better than others. Itemization is on its own level, being the best I’ve encountered in my entire life and the main reason why I keep coming back to it. It’s also why it’s such a grind of a game, which is not for everyone. Anyway, I definitely recommend 2 over the others, which is not to say that they are not good games.

As for plot… well, you can play all games without reading a single line of dialogue, but you can if you want and I like the games for that.

Edit for clarity: you don’t need to play the games in any order, as the plots are mostly self contained, but I do think it’s very rewarding to go through them and seeing the plot unfold. There are many iconic moments.

You’re in for a treat, start with Diablo 1.
Thanks to it’s color palette, it’s still very atmospheric, even today. There’s HD mod that not only makes it no hassle to run this on modern PC with higher resolution but also adds ton of content that was originally cut from the game. It even adds re-imagined cut content that was only just mentioned somewhere in-game or was planned for Diablo 1 but actually ended up being part of Diablo 2 later on. Purists will whine about too many balance/item changes, it’s worth it to try the game firsthand.
https://mod.diablo.noktis.pl/download

I’ve been meaning to try the series for about 20 years now, and just pulled the plug on Diablo IV. I’ve only done a couple of quests but I’m really enjoying it so far.

The gameplay feels relatively basic at the moment, but I realise there’s probably a lot of complexity I’ve not revealed yet. For now I’m having a great time just hitting mobs, finding better gear and exploring the over world.

I’ve also picked up Diablo 1 from GOG and am enjoying that - it feels even simpler, but is a lot of fun. I’m using the DevilutionX port which adds a lot of modern features to the game.

I’m playing both games mostly on my Steam Deck, and they play really well with the gamepad controls. IV looks fantastic too. I do intend to play some on my PC though, I need to justify that graphics card I told my wife I needed…

PS: first post on BeeHaw, it’s nice here!

Diablo 2, 3, and 4 are all great for their own reasons. Diablo 3 and 4 are more streamlined. However, the music for all of them is great, stay a while in listen, especially in the main town, Tristram. Torchlight 2 is also a classic and it has the same music composer who did Diablo 2, so it’s also excellent. If you want a game with more class depth but it’s about halfway between Diablo and Path of Exile, check out Last Epoch on Steam. It should be out of early access later this year and it is a very special game.

If you like action RPGs, diablo 2 is the game that made it into what the genre is today for the most part. It’s practically a perfect game from a fundamentals and gameplay standpoint (meaning it’s perfect at what it aimed to do and the impact it’s had, not that it’s without flaws). I have never been as into AARPGs as my friends, I burn out on them too quickly usually, and I don’t have the patience for the grind. But for people who like that style, it’s the OG. Its probably the first game I ever sunk more than 100 hours into, but those are rookie numbers for AARPG vets.

Diablo 1 is fantastic, but is very dated at this point. Partly because Diablo 2 improved on damn near everything.

Diablo 3 was…fine. I played through it twice when it launched and I’ve never touched it again. It was/is insanely popular but it wasn’t for me.

I haven’t played 4 and personally don’t plan to, but it seems like people really like it so far! I’m not against it by any means, I’m just not into the seasonal content type games, and I really prefer to play single player, and I play offline a ton. I can’t keep up with the grind or the time commitment, but wish the best for those that can and enjoy that game style.

I only ever played diablo 2, but I had a lot of fun playing it!

Also curious about this. I’ve played torchlight and it’s similar and I enjoyed that

Having sunk tons of time into D3, I can say it’s worth a look. The paragon leveling system from D3/D4 is a clever way of rewarding players who keep playing well after the main 3 (or 4 with D3 DLC) acts. I think I was at Paragon level 1100 or so when I stopped playing.

The biggest complaint people had about D3 IIRC was it’s too colorful (something they poked fun at with the Whimsydale/rainbow goblin).

D2 was a favorite in college, but admittedly I never played outside of some lab parties.

D4 is shaping up to be a solid game, but this is patient gamers, so I don’t know if that counts.

Yeah, but they aren’t fun if you run into cheaters. They’re a blast if you play with some of your friends. There are other similar games too, so I recommend you give the whole genre a shot.

I wouldn’t recommend going as far back as the first one. Diablo 2 Resurrected came out last year and is a good starting point for the series if you’re thinking about trying it out. I never got into 3, but so far 4 feels really good.