I’ll admit my wading into the deep end of Diablo games came as more of an experiment than a genuine interest in playing the titles. And, yes, I do think Diablo 1 is the deep end: the game is wicked troublesome for new players with its clunky controls, 2bit graphics, and slooooow methodology for quest and dialogue accumulation.
As a completely new player to the series, this is doubly true. I found myself really trying to understand the game for the first thirty minutes of my venture instead of just enjoying it. But those first thirty minutes taught me something important about art and exploring old creations that are of high esteem within the boomer enclave.
Diablo 1 has incredible music. Like, genuinely, strangely unique and enthralling music. Walking around the town Tristram with that strange slide guitar pewing gave off quite the achievement of horror and relaxation wrapped up into a single piece. Diablo 1 still holds up in 2025, and is it just because of the music? Of course not.
Everybody knows that things which do not change are often unchanging because they work. Or, at least, they work for some people sufficiently enough. Modern gamers who have played Diablo 4 or 3 will understand what the gameplay loop of the Diablo series is all about: kill demons, farm items, grow in strength, repeat. What’s telling about Diablo 1’s quality is that all of the core mechanics of the Diablo series were almost perfectly figured out on their first try.
Diablo 1 has the demons, it has the unidentified item drops, it has the magery, the roguery, and the melee tankery, it has the “hold shift to smack in general direction”, and it has Tristram as the central hub of the world. It’s nothing short of a miracle shaking hands with developer genius that Diablo 1’s core gameplay loop (and the core gameplay itself) hasn’t changed in the three titles following its release.
The gameplay itself, admittedly feels clunky. Where Diablo 4 feels like 360 degrees of gymnastics, Diablo 1 feels like 8 directions worth of Bullet (30 seconds). For the time, it was absolutely the fastest title in the RPG space. I mean, blazing fast. With my 2000 dollar PC and 2k Hours+ of MOBA experience, I found myself genuinely struggling to keep up in some parts of the game.
But, as is the case with many a’ game in the 90’s and early 2000’s, the gameplay itself isn’t great on its own. Rather, the context surrounding the gameplay is what draws the player in. Diablo 1 goes through great pains trying to convey a puzzled story to the player while also making town exploration meaningful. In town, you get your quests, your dialogue, your music, your character development, and tips from the NPCs. In short, the town serves to add context for the gameplay that happens down below.
In Diablo 1, this balance of context and gameplay is perfected. Your gameplay unlocks the context, and the context provides meaning to the gameplay. I couldn’t have prepared myself for the level of quality that Diablo 1 had in store for me, and I expect I’ll be chasing that starlight for years to come in the ARPG space.