On this day 28 years ago, PC gamers went to hell and back, and Blizzard got another valuable franchise in addition to Warcraft – Diablo.
Who is crazy enough to release a game on the last day of the year? The answer is – Blizzard Entertainment. In the case of the original Diablo, the risky insanity paid off… maybe not on day one, but Diablo already did the occasion was a hot commodity like hot sausages at Advent fairs.
Less well known is Diablo was originally conceived as a turn-based RPG and was to be animated by clay animation. However, the success of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans influenced the development of Diablo and we ended up with an isometric real-time RPG.
The plot of the game was that the player returned to his hometown Tristram who was massacred by the forces of darkness in the middle of the war between heaven and hell. Beneath the city itself was the titular character Diablo, a demon captured by the Horadrim order centuries earlier. The player could choose between three classes (warrior, rogue, sorcerer) and through 16 levels made his way to the ultimate enemy, blackening the reanimated dead and demons in the process.
The player could choose between three classes and make his way through 16 levels to the ultimate enemy.
Diablo was not the first example hack’n’slash subgenre, but with its own approach random generation levela i hope attracted numerous players. It was also one of the first games of its type that could be played cooperatively, either over a local or global network.
It was definitely the strongest asset of the game dark atmosphere – so dark that Blizzard had to tone it down a bit in the third game so that the game would not be repulsive to a wider audience. But in 1997, Diablo was accepted for what it is. The very next year, Blizzard attracted the interest of Electronic Arts, to whom it lent the rights to release the game in console versions. In the end, only one was made port for the first PlayStation.
Diablo received its first and only expansion called shortly after its release Hellfire. Four years later, it received a much more popular and successful sequel, and later the series expanded to mobile phones and returned to the main platforms in 2023 with Diablo 4. The original Diablo can be purchased today in digital form on GOG.com for 9.20 euros or on Battle.net for 10 euros.