Everyone has a Diablo story.
Mine is pretty straightforward. When Diablo II came out in June of 2000, I plopped down on a computer chair in the attic and camped up there for months, ganging up with Internet friends to defeat Mephisto over and over again in hopes that heâd drop something gold and that I could click fast enough to get it. I revisited the game again when Blizzard released the expansion pack. (Thatâs what we used to call DLC. It didnât come on the disc.) I would play it again and again over the coming months and years in intervals of varying length and intensity. For a very long time, Diablo II took over my life. It had a certain charm. A certain⊠magic.
Next week, a whole new generation of gamers will write their own Diablo stories as Blizzard finally releases the third game in its action-RPG series. For a lot of longtime series fans, thatâs totally surreal. We thought this would happen ten years ago. And it leaves us asking a tough question.
Can Diablo III capture the magic of its predecessor?
Donât get me wrong: I have no doubt that Diablo III will be a wonderful experience. Iâm sure it will be stuffed with addictive loot drops and entertaining plot twists. Diablo will be nasty and Cain will be wise and the skills will be crunchy and it will be genuine fun all around. I canât wait to play through it.
Blizzardâs biggest competitor in the ever-evolving war for your time and attention is a beast of its own creation.
But thereâs a lot working against Diablo IIIâs magic-inducing abilities. For one, I donât have the time I did 12 years ago. Maybe you can relate. Us cranky, ancient Diablo addicts who are now in our 20s and 30s just donât have the freedom to spend hours and hours gaming like we did when we were in school. We have wives and boyfriends and dogs and kids and mortgages and car payments to worry about. We might be able to get away with plugging in a few hours of Mass Effect a week or delving into some Persona 3 Portable on the bus home from work, but we can no longer commit to endless magic-find runs or Baal-crawling sessions. Not anymore.
(Just the thought of Diabloâs hardcore modeâan optional setting that permanently wipes out your character if you die even onceâis giving me involuntary finger spasms.)
Itâs not just old fans, here. Todayâs gaming landscape looks much different than it did 12 years ago. The industry is more cluttered than its ever been. Our attention spans are constantly being yanked in a hundred different directions, all as flashy as a Vegas nightshow. Assassinâs Creed here. Zelda there. Words With Friends everywhere.
(Donât believe me? Just look at Diablo IIIâs release date, May 15. Also out on May 15: Max Payne 3, Game of Thrones, Battleship, and PixelJunk 4AM. Too many options!)
Perhaps Diablo IIIâs biggest obstacle is that today, our primal need to deck out characters in shiny loot is being met elsewhere. Star Wars: The Old Republic just came out. The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online are all en route. Games like the upcoming Torchlight II and Grim Dawn could be worthy competitors.
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In many ways, World of Warcraft took Diablo II and made it into a better game. It combined Diabloâs addictive hack-slash-dungeon-loot-repeat formula with a persistent, thriving, story-filled world and some truly excellent lore. The results were spectacular. (Some 10 million people now play the MMORPG.) But in the wake of World of Warcraftâs success, is there still room for a game that is, at its core, nothing but dungeon crawling and loot hunting? Is there still room for yet another online action-RPG without a persistent, ever-evolving world? Is there still room for Diablo III?
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Hope Iâm wrong.
