Diablo Review

Diablo's genius was subtraction. Blizzard North took the turn-based roguelike and shaved it down to a single verb, click, then attached that verb to the most effective reward engine games had yet seen. Sixteen randomized dungeon levels beneath Tristram guarantee no two descents match; item drops roll from a vast affix table so every rare feels minted for you; and the color-coded loot hierarchy it popularized now underpins half the industry.

The gothic presentation does enormous work, Matt Uelmen's guitar theme for Tristram is one of the medium's great pieces of scene-setting, and the descent from cathedral to catacombs to hell has a real theological gravity that the sparse story supports rather than drives. Multiplayer over Battle.net, free and frictionless in 1996, turned the compulsion communal, dupes and player-killers included. The visuals were murky even then, but the loop is immortal, and everything from its own sequels to whole live-service genres descends from it.