9 ms·

There is a slowly but steadily progressing engine being developed at https://freeablo.org/ https://freeablo.org/

by aw3c2 8y ago

have_faith 8y ago
It's such a shame there's no modern spiritual successor to Diablo / Diablo 2. The aesthetic and gameplay was great.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  Torchlight? Although it is a few years old.
  - phoe-krk 8y ago
    ...and Torchlight 2.
    - bloodorange 8y ago
      I've played both but they lack the replay value of Diablo II (with/without expansion). There are a number of improvements to mechanical things when compared to the Diablo series but I felt that the Torchlight games were quite repetitive after a while. Though diablo 2 had a lot of grinding, I did not feel that way about it at the time. I've spent countless hours in Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: LOD but I could only play both Torchlight games put together for ~ 2 weeks or so.
- Merthurian 8y ago
  Path of Exile
  - gabes 8y ago
    This game is incredibly good. It's everything Diablo 3 should have been.
    - Merthurian 8y ago
      Yep. Just started playing it. It's like Diablo 2 with materia from FF7. Perfection.
      - tbredin 8y ago
        This is exactly how I describe it to people. I've been playing since closed beta and put more than 1000 hours into it, still can't beat all the end game content (in a good way)
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      Inability to zoom out more kills it for me. Feels too much like diablo 2 at 800x600
      - SXX 8y ago
        One of biggest downside of that game for me. Fortunatelly at least few years ago there was publicly available zoom hack that obviously will get your account banned, but it's not something I would care about in F2P game like ever.
      - 15charlimit 8y ago
        If you adjust the aspect radio by playing in windowed mode and keeping it full-width while lowering the height, you gain significantly more visibility. I imagine playing on an ultrawide display would have a similar effect. Granted, it wasn't built to support a zoomed out camera so some controls behave poorly at the outer edges of visibility.
- darkmuck 8y ago
  Grim Dawn
- amatecha 8y ago
  Grim Dawn is pretty darn close -- definitely check it out. Torchlight and Torchlight 2, while a bit lighter in atmosphere, have music composed by Matt Uelmen (Diablo & Diablo 2 composer)! Very nice stuff indeed.
- jgrowl 8y ago
  David Brevik, the creator of diablo is currently working on an indy game pretty much by himself called It Lurks Below. It's kind of like if terraria merged with diablo. You have to survive by growing crops and you get items by venturing lower and lower into the world using your pickaxe. It's still in pre-release on steam, but even at this stage I played it for quite a number of hours and found that it had a surprising amount of depth. It's certainly not on the same level as diablo, but it is worth checking out if you are into those kind of games. I really wish Blizzard would not have shut down Blizzard North and would have let Brevik continue working on his vision for diablo 3. That's life I guess though.
  - picsao 8y ago
    Just some greedy gremlins ousting the actual creators of success. Must be a law of nature.
  - oraknabo 8y ago
    I was never a huge Diablo fan, but I could always appreciate the things people liked about it. I gained new respect for it from watching Brevik's GDC postmortem [0] from a couple of years ago. I love the idea that it was originally a dungeon crawl inspired by X-COM and would love to play one of the early builds before they changed to real-time combat. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc
  - pm90 8y ago
    That sounds really cool! Terraria is an excellent game and I kind of liked that its monsters were in the same vein (i.e. scary, evil. Especially liked when I dug through the ground to find the underworld... ha). The loot system is insane. Its a little hard to replicate the gore and fear of the original game though; and the fighting does seem a lot more involved in D2 than in Terraria.
  - bfrydl 8y ago
    I've heard about this game but what exactly is it that makes people say it's a mix of Terraria and Diablo, besides the creator? It looks almost identical to Terraria to me, which also has you building on the surface and descending deeper and deeper into the world.
- jakebasile 8y ago
  Isometric ARPGs are niche now, but there's still games being made. Off the top of my head: - Titan Quest (just got an update and a new expansion!) - Grim Dawn - The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Victor Vran - Path of Exile - Warhammer 40000 Inquisitor - Martyr - Torchlight 1 & 2 (I wish Runic games hadn't imploded...) It is unfortunate that most of these don't have the same level of randomness than Diablo has, but they're pretty good games in their own right.
  - 3pt14159 8y ago
    I played path of exile years ago and it was great.
    - grenoire 8y ago
      Now it's even better, and even more addicting...
    - dkersten 8y ago
      Me too! It was fantastic. Ironically, I stopped playing a few weeks before it came out of closed beta (just didn’t have time and then never went back to it... now its changed so much I feel a bit overwhelmed by the thoughts of going back to it) I actually heard about PoE on HN too, back in 2012 :)
      - tbredin 8y ago
        The latest update has a sort of dungeon building mechanic and its so so good. Highly recommend trying it out again. The art & graphics have improved a lot since closed beta too (I was there ... just never left)
        dkersten 8y ago
        Thanks for the comment! I may give it another look. (although a big reason behind why I haven’t is that I mainly play on consoles now, will have to see how well it runs on my shitty machine!)
- arh68 8y ago
  Bloodborne on the PS4 is pretty much exactly what I imagined Diablo III could have been. It’s so close but it’s also quite different.
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  Path of Exile?
- ek9 8y ago
  Path of Exile is a spiritual successor to Diablo / Diablo 2. https://www.pathofexile.com/game https://www.pathofexile.com/game
  - mihaifm 8y ago
    PoE...great game, spent 200+ hours on it, but I wouldn't be able to tell you which class I was or which was the final boss. It's just not as memorable as Diablo. I can remember clearly my Diablo 2 characters and even the items I had. Or it could be just me getting old...
    - tbredin 8y ago
      Did you play since 3.2? They finally "finished" the main game and there are 10 acts now (in 2 parts) and I'd say that since the final boss is the only one that gets a cinematic cutscene .... bit more memorable these days!
    - gh02t 8y ago
      The lore for PoE is actually super deep and fascinating (as we as dark, even Diablo would be like "damn dude, that's hardcore" about some of the stuff that goes down), but it's much more in the background and you have to pay close attention to pick it up. The game takes on a different feel though when you dig into the lore and start to understand and recognize the stuff that you come across. I kinda like this design actually, makes it feel more satisfying and mysterious, but it is also convenient because you can ignore it if you're not interested (PoE greatly emphasizes many repeated playthroughs for people unfamiliar). https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/History_of_Wraeclast https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/History_of_Wraeclast has some of the background story.
- robohamburger 8y ago
  edit: Didn't read the the "spiritual" part of the "spiritual successor". Though you could argue diablo 3 is, I would not be so bold. You should still try diablo 3 if you haven't. Diablo 3 is actually pretty good now if you want a successor. If you just want something similar to diablo 2 I suggest torchlight or titan quest. Diablo 1 is tricky because it was so much closer to rogue likes (probably because originally it was one). I would love to see a game that has a more subdued and methodical pacing but with less town hacks :)
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >Diablo 3 is actually pretty good now if you want a successor. Diablo 3 is in no way a spiritual successor to D1 and 2. Yes, it's much better than it was at release, but it is still very much a streamlined, mass market friendly ARPG. Modern Diablo gameplay consists of leveling (1-2 hours), finishing your season journey (another 2-3 hours, maybe), getting your free super-powerful six piece handed to you, and then grinding paragon levels and filling in a couple of gear spots here and there. It in no significant way resembles the Diablo of old. If you want a true sequel try PoE or Grim Dawn.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - robohamburger 8y ago
      I guess I didn't read spiritual in the successor part though I am not sure what that means. I can see how they games are different enough that saying diablo 3 is a spirital successor is probably not useful. I don't think arguing about what it means would be fruitful, so I concede the point. > Yes, it's much better than it was at release, but it is still very much a streamlined, mass market friendly ARPG. How is this bad? It seems like you are implying it is. Also how is diablo 3 mass-market and diablo 2 not? > Modern Diablo gameplay consists of leveling (1-2 hours), finishing your season journey (another 2-3 hours, maybe), getting your free super-powerful six piece handed to you, and then grinding paragon levels and filling in a couple of gear spots here and there. Agree, that is how I play it. This is slightly hyperbolic but not that far off. It took me about 2 days of playing to get to T13 (the hardest difficulty). This could be made more interesting but I kind of enjoy tweaking my build and min-maxing :) > It in no significant way resembles the Diablo of old. If you want a true sequel try PoE or Grim Dawn. Which diablo? Diablo 3 is a true sequel, you just don't like it, which is fine.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  You need to look harder. Path of Exile and Grim Dawn are absolutely spiritual successors to Diablo.
- jjjensen90 8y ago
  It's not modern, but I founded/work on a revival of the 3D ARPG MMO created by the studio founded by the creators of Diablo/Diablo 2 (Flagship Studios), Hellgate: London (https://london2038.com https://london2038.com). In almost every sense Hellgate: London was intended to be the direct successor of Diablo 2, created by the same people, but on an even more ambitious scope. Sadly the game failed to stay profitable and the servers shut down in 2008. A few of the team members from Flagship Studios went on to found Runic and create Torchlight, another spiritual successor. Reading this reverse engineering, I can see a lot of similarities between Diablo and the Hellgate systems.
  - quikoa 8y ago
    While I really liked the idea of Hellgate: London the subscription model they attempted to push was a huge turn-off. It was more like Diablo/Diablo 2 than it was an MMO, very few people playing together in an instance. This means that it had comparable costs of Diablo 2 with battle.net. The subscription model looked more like a cheap way to squeeze extra money out of players. Charging extra for additional content (like Lord of Destruction for Diablo 2) would make a lot more sense.
- kjeetgill 8y ago
  Not quite the same, but the D&D bases games scratch the same itch for me. Baldurs Gate (2 is easier to get into), Neverwinter Night (prefer the first), and recently Pillers of Eternity was a fantastic throw back. Even better: you can get most of those DRM-Free on Gog!
- Maro 8y ago
  I played and loved both Diablo 1, 2 and 3, SP only. At 37, I still play D3 sometimes (SP). Can somebody explain why D3 is not the "spiritual successor"?
  - Vekz 8y ago
    It dropped a lot of the themes, pacing and mechanics of Diablo 1 and 2. The classic aesthetic of Diablo is a slow-medium paced dungeon crawler rouge like with brooding death metally horror atmosphere and deep lore. Diablo 3 is fast paced anime esque disney lore slot machine
- vocatus_gate 8y ago
  Path of Exile (free to play) is surprisingly good and feels more "Diablo" than Diablo 3 did. Highly recommended if you're itching for Diablo 2-style gameplay.
- bloopernova 8y ago
  You don't feel that Path of Exile is a spiritual successor? Disclaimer, I'm a big fan of PoE. I've always heard it described as the true sequel to Diablo II. Plus it's free to play, and not pay to win. In my opinion those are huge bonuses to an already great game.
- Z1515M8147 8y ago
  Back in 2009 I put several hundred hours into the diablo 2 mod called Median, which turned into Median XL. Should you ever want a successor to Diablo 2 this was it. The craft that went into this by its original author BrotherLaz was exceptional, who was outstanding at creating content within the games restrictive modding mechanisms. The balance of all the content was just so finely tuned; BrotherLaz really had an instinct for this stuff and the effort really showed. Whenever we complained about anything on the forums BrotherLaz wouldn't just give in to the whining; instead disappearing for a few days and coming back with a complete solution that nobody saw coming, whether that was an overhaul of a whole skill tree or something way out from left field, as if there was a whole room of experienced game designers behind workshopping every idea. But there wasn't. And every time we would all love the mod even more. BrotherLaz went on to operate under the pseudonym Enai Siaion on Skyrim mods (including the very popular Apolocypse spellmod) but I've no idea what he/she has worked on since then. A content creater to watch out for.
  - mihaifm 8y ago
    Just browsed their website...this looks massive. Might be tempted to go back to D2 just to try this. Looks like it's still in development all these years later.
    - Z1515M8147 8y ago
      From what I can tell of the latest release trailers it looks to me like the bulk of Laz's work is still in there despite it having 10 years more dev since I played it, a majority being after Laz handed it over to the community, so I would be cautiously optimistic that it's still the transformative mod it once was! I'm also tempted to reinstall it!

There is a slowly but steadily progressing engine being developed at https://freeablo.org/ https://freeablo.org/

by aw3c2 8y ago

There is a slowly but steadily progressing engine being developed at https://freeablo.org/ https://freeablo.org/

have_faith 8y ago

It's such a shame there's no modern spiritual successor to Diablo / Diablo 2. The aesthetic and gameplay was great.

yoz-y 8y ago
Torchlight? Although it is a few years old.
- phoe-krk 8y ago
  ...and Torchlight 2.
  - bloodorange 8y ago
    I've played both but they lack the replay value of Diablo II (with/without expansion). There are a number of improvements to mechanical things when compared to the Diablo series but I felt that the Torchlight games were quite repetitive after a while. Though diablo 2 had a lot of grinding, I did not feel that way about it at the time. I've spent countless hours in Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: LOD but I could only play both Torchlight games put together for ~ 2 weeks or so.
Merthurian 8y ago
Path of Exile
- gabes 8y ago
  This game is incredibly good. It's everything Diablo 3 should have been.
  - Merthurian 8y ago
    Yep. Just started playing it. It's like Diablo 2 with materia from FF7. Perfection.
    - tbredin 8y ago
      This is exactly how I describe it to people. I've been playing since closed beta and put more than 1000 hours into it, still can't beat all the end game content (in a good way)
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Inability to zoom out more kills it for me. Feels too much like diablo 2 at 800x600
    - SXX 8y ago
      One of biggest downside of that game for me. Fortunatelly at least few years ago there was publicly available zoom hack that obviously will get your account banned, but it's not something I would care about in F2P game like ever.
    - 15charlimit 8y ago
      If you adjust the aspect radio by playing in windowed mode and keeping it full-width while lowering the height, you gain significantly more visibility. I imagine playing on an ultrawide display would have a similar effect. Granted, it wasn't built to support a zoomed out camera so some controls behave poorly at the outer edges of visibility.
darkmuck 8y ago
Grim Dawn
amatecha 8y ago
Grim Dawn is pretty darn close -- definitely check it out. Torchlight and Torchlight 2, while a bit lighter in atmosphere, have music composed by Matt Uelmen (Diablo & Diablo 2 composer)! Very nice stuff indeed.
jgrowl 8y ago
David Brevik, the creator of diablo is currently working on an indy game pretty much by himself called It Lurks Below. It's kind of like if terraria merged with diablo. You have to survive by growing crops and you get items by venturing lower and lower into the world using your pickaxe. It's still in pre-release on steam, but even at this stage I played it for quite a number of hours and found that it had a surprising amount of depth. It's certainly not on the same level as diablo, but it is worth checking out if you are into those kind of games. I really wish Blizzard would not have shut down Blizzard North and would have let Brevik continue working on his vision for diablo 3. That's life I guess though.
- picsao 8y ago
  Just some greedy gremlins ousting the actual creators of success. Must be a law of nature.
- oraknabo 8y ago
  I was never a huge Diablo fan, but I could always appreciate the things people liked about it. I gained new respect for it from watching Brevik's GDC postmortem [0] from a couple of years ago. I love the idea that it was originally a dungeon crawl inspired by X-COM and would love to play one of the early builds before they changed to real-time combat. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc
- pm90 8y ago
  That sounds really cool! Terraria is an excellent game and I kind of liked that its monsters were in the same vein (i.e. scary, evil. Especially liked when I dug through the ground to find the underworld... ha). The loot system is insane. Its a little hard to replicate the gore and fear of the original game though; and the fighting does seem a lot more involved in D2 than in Terraria.
- bfrydl 8y ago
  I've heard about this game but what exactly is it that makes people say it's a mix of Terraria and Diablo, besides the creator? It looks almost identical to Terraria to me, which also has you building on the surface and descending deeper and deeper into the world.
jakebasile 8y ago
Isometric ARPGs are niche now, but there's still games being made. Off the top of my head: - Titan Quest (just got an update and a new expansion!) - Grim Dawn - The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Victor Vran - Path of Exile - Warhammer 40000 Inquisitor - Martyr - Torchlight 1 & 2 (I wish Runic games hadn't imploded...) It is unfortunate that most of these don't have the same level of randomness than Diablo has, but they're pretty good games in their own right.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  I played path of exile years ago and it was great.
  - grenoire 8y ago
    Now it's even better, and even more addicting...
  - dkersten 8y ago
    Me too! It was fantastic. Ironically, I stopped playing a few weeks before it came out of closed beta (just didn’t have time and then never went back to it... now its changed so much I feel a bit overwhelmed by the thoughts of going back to it) I actually heard about PoE on HN too, back in 2012 :)
    - tbredin 8y ago
      The latest update has a sort of dungeon building mechanic and its so so good. Highly recommend trying it out again. The art & graphics have improved a lot since closed beta too (I was there ... just never left)
      - dkersten 8y ago
        Thanks for the comment! I may give it another look. (although a big reason behind why I haven’t is that I mainly play on consoles now, will have to see how well it runs on my shitty machine!)
arh68 8y ago
Bloodborne on the PS4 is pretty much exactly what I imagined Diablo III could have been. It’s so close but it’s also quite different.
asdsa5325 8y ago
Path of Exile?
ek9 8y ago
Path of Exile is a spiritual successor to Diablo / Diablo 2. https://www.pathofexile.com/game https://www.pathofexile.com/game
- mihaifm 8y ago
  PoE...great game, spent 200+ hours on it, but I wouldn't be able to tell you which class I was or which was the final boss. It's just not as memorable as Diablo. I can remember clearly my Diablo 2 characters and even the items I had. Or it could be just me getting old...
  - tbredin 8y ago
    Did you play since 3.2? They finally "finished" the main game and there are 10 acts now (in 2 parts) and I'd say that since the final boss is the only one that gets a cinematic cutscene .... bit more memorable these days!
  - gh02t 8y ago
    The lore for PoE is actually super deep and fascinating (as we as dark, even Diablo would be like "damn dude, that's hardcore" about some of the stuff that goes down), but it's much more in the background and you have to pay close attention to pick it up. The game takes on a different feel though when you dig into the lore and start to understand and recognize the stuff that you come across. I kinda like this design actually, makes it feel more satisfying and mysterious, but it is also convenient because you can ignore it if you're not interested (PoE greatly emphasizes many repeated playthroughs for people unfamiliar). https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/History_of_Wraeclast https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/History_of_Wraeclast has some of the background story.
robohamburger 8y ago
edit: Didn't read the the "spiritual" part of the "spiritual successor". Though you could argue diablo 3 is, I would not be so bold. You should still try diablo 3 if you haven't. Diablo 3 is actually pretty good now if you want a successor. If you just want something similar to diablo 2 I suggest torchlight or titan quest. Diablo 1 is tricky because it was so much closer to rogue likes (probably because originally it was one). I would love to see a game that has a more subdued and methodical pacing but with less town hacks :)
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >Diablo 3 is actually pretty good now if you want a successor. Diablo 3 is in no way a spiritual successor to D1 and 2. Yes, it's much better than it was at release, but it is still very much a streamlined, mass market friendly ARPG. Modern Diablo gameplay consists of leveling (1-2 hours), finishing your season journey (another 2-3 hours, maybe), getting your free super-powerful six piece handed to you, and then grinding paragon levels and filling in a couple of gear spots here and there. It in no significant way resembles the Diablo of old. If you want a true sequel try PoE or Grim Dawn.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - robohamburger 8y ago
    I guess I didn't read spiritual in the successor part though I am not sure what that means. I can see how they games are different enough that saying diablo 3 is a spirital successor is probably not useful. I don't think arguing about what it means would be fruitful, so I concede the point. > Yes, it's much better than it was at release, but it is still very much a streamlined, mass market friendly ARPG. How is this bad? It seems like you are implying it is. Also how is diablo 3 mass-market and diablo 2 not? > Modern Diablo gameplay consists of leveling (1-2 hours), finishing your season journey (another 2-3 hours, maybe), getting your free super-powerful six piece handed to you, and then grinding paragon levels and filling in a couple of gear spots here and there. Agree, that is how I play it. This is slightly hyperbolic but not that far off. It took me about 2 days of playing to get to T13 (the hardest difficulty). This could be made more interesting but I kind of enjoy tweaking my build and min-maxing :) > It in no significant way resembles the Diablo of old. If you want a true sequel try PoE or Grim Dawn. Which diablo? Diablo 3 is a true sequel, you just don't like it, which is fine.
EpicEng 8y ago
You need to look harder. Path of Exile and Grim Dawn are absolutely spiritual successors to Diablo.
jjjensen90 8y ago
It's not modern, but I founded/work on a revival of the 3D ARPG MMO created by the studio founded by the creators of Diablo/Diablo 2 (Flagship Studios), Hellgate: London (https://london2038.com https://london2038.com). In almost every sense Hellgate: London was intended to be the direct successor of Diablo 2, created by the same people, but on an even more ambitious scope. Sadly the game failed to stay profitable and the servers shut down in 2008. A few of the team members from Flagship Studios went on to found Runic and create Torchlight, another spiritual successor. Reading this reverse engineering, I can see a lot of similarities between Diablo and the Hellgate systems.
- quikoa 8y ago
  While I really liked the idea of Hellgate: London the subscription model they attempted to push was a huge turn-off. It was more like Diablo/Diablo 2 than it was an MMO, very few people playing together in an instance. This means that it had comparable costs of Diablo 2 with battle.net. The subscription model looked more like a cheap way to squeeze extra money out of players. Charging extra for additional content (like Lord of Destruction for Diablo 2) would make a lot more sense.
kjeetgill 8y ago
Not quite the same, but the D&D bases games scratch the same itch for me. Baldurs Gate (2 is easier to get into), Neverwinter Night (prefer the first), and recently Pillers of Eternity was a fantastic throw back. Even better: you can get most of those DRM-Free on Gog!
Maro 8y ago
I played and loved both Diablo 1, 2 and 3, SP only. At 37, I still play D3 sometimes (SP). Can somebody explain why D3 is not the "spiritual successor"?
- Vekz 8y ago
  It dropped a lot of the themes, pacing and mechanics of Diablo 1 and 2. The classic aesthetic of Diablo is a slow-medium paced dungeon crawler rouge like with brooding death metally horror atmosphere and deep lore. Diablo 3 is fast paced anime esque disney lore slot machine
vocatus_gate 8y ago
Path of Exile (free to play) is surprisingly good and feels more "Diablo" than Diablo 3 did. Highly recommended if you're itching for Diablo 2-style gameplay.
bloopernova 8y ago
You don't feel that Path of Exile is a spiritual successor? Disclaimer, I'm a big fan of PoE. I've always heard it described as the true sequel to Diablo II. Plus it's free to play, and not pay to win. In my opinion those are huge bonuses to an already great game.
Z1515M8147 8y ago
Back in 2009 I put several hundred hours into the diablo 2 mod called Median, which turned into Median XL. Should you ever want a successor to Diablo 2 this was it. The craft that went into this by its original author BrotherLaz was exceptional, who was outstanding at creating content within the games restrictive modding mechanisms. The balance of all the content was just so finely tuned; BrotherLaz really had an instinct for this stuff and the effort really showed. Whenever we complained about anything on the forums BrotherLaz wouldn't just give in to the whining; instead disappearing for a few days and coming back with a complete solution that nobody saw coming, whether that was an overhaul of a whole skill tree or something way out from left field, as if there was a whole room of experienced game designers behind workshopping every idea. But there wasn't. And every time we would all love the mod even more. BrotherLaz went on to operate under the pseudonym Enai Siaion on Skyrim mods (including the very popular Apolocypse spellmod) but I've no idea what he/she has worked on since then. A content creater to watch out for.
- mihaifm 8y ago
  Just browsed their website...this looks massive. Might be tempted to go back to D2 just to try this. Looks like it's still in development all these years later.
  - Z1515M8147 8y ago
    From what I can tell of the latest release trailers it looks to me like the bulk of Laz's work is still in there despite it having 10 years more dev since I played it, a majority being after Laz handed it over to the community, so I would be cautiously optimistic that it's still the transformative mod it once was! I'm also tempted to reinstall it!