With the remastered edition of Diablo 2 on its way, some fans of the immensely popular series may be wondering how to get their hands on the original title that ignited an iconic and genre-defining franchise. Other fans may be wondering if Diablo 1 is worth revisiting since it is not receiving the remaster treatment.
Console and PC gamers would probably agree that Diablo 1 is a notoriously tricky game to find. So, it's notable that the remastered Diablo 2: Resurrected will be available on most platforms. For a while, the only way someone could play Diablo 1 was by having a physical copy of the game from 1996 and a computer that could run it. However, Good Old Games (GOG) has released a digital version of it which includes bug fixes, the Hellfire expansion pack, and works compatibly with Windows 7, 8, and 10. PC players can now revisit Tristram in all of its unholy glory for less than $10.
Why Diablo 1 is Not on Blizzard's Website
It’s unclear why Blizzard is not including Diablo 1 on its website’s shop library, but one popular theory is that the gaming giant does not want to deal with support issues on a 25-year-old game. In this vacuum, GOG is giving a home to it and other forgotten Blizzard titles such as Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness.
Emulating games can be an easy route towards having instant access to classic titles, but emulating Diablo 1 can oftentimes prove to be fruitless. It’s almost impossible to find a decent way to emulate it for macOS, and none of those versions will be able to play it with the Hellfire expansion pack, which includes new classes that have yet to be fully explored even in the most current iterations of the game. A ported version of the game was released for PlayStation that apparently doesn’t work great either, so the best way to play Diablo 1 in 2021 is to just use a PC and get the digital download from GOG.
Playing Diablo 1 in 2021
People who have played Diablo 1 before will find the experience of hearing the echoing acoustic soundtrack and drinking in the 20 FPS SVGA graphics to be cathartic. Both people who have and haven't played the game before will most likely find some of the gameplay to be clunky by today’s standards. Until Diablo 1 gets a remaster, or even something similar to the fan-made remaster of Diablo 2, players will need to view it as a unique chapter in the history of Diablo.
Most people agree that Diablo 2 took ideas from Diablo 1 and expanded on them, generally improving the game. It's widely considered to be the superior alternative, thus more viable for an updated re-release. For example, the player character in Diablo 1 moves very slowly. The Hellfire expansion pack for Diablo 1 gave players the ability to fast-walk while in town, but it still felt like a slog to get through. Diablo 2 gave players the ability to move faster which was a huge improvement. However, purists will argue that Diablo 1 holds many of its own unique strengths compared to the rest of the canon.
Diablo 1 is a relatively small game that derives most of its strength from a combination of expertly crafted atmosphere, looting, RPG character building, and story. The only town is Tristram, below which there are 16 dungeon levels. The levels are randomly generated at the beginning of each play-through and randomly populated from pools of appropriately leveled enemies, which creates an infinitely replayable gaming experience. It has a relatively small roster of heroes to chose from compared to the vast catalog of current Diablo character choices, but it gives each class and foe plenty of attention and detail. Items are randomly generated as well, which makes it possible for a player character to gain an overpowered item immediately or never see one at all.
Warrior, rogue, and sorcerer are the only three character classes in Diablo 1. Warriors have the best strength, Diablo rogues are great with bows, and the sorcerer is initially weak but can quickly become the most powerful character in the game through careful magic upgrades. Every character has the ability to learn a spell that allows them to immediately teleport to town, which takes the edge off how slowly the character moves.
Diablo 1 uses a rigid X/Y axis system that makes it so that characters and items are only allowed to exist within certain squares in a straight line. When a player drops items, sometimes due to the absence of a stash or the crafting and looting system in Diablo 3, the items will populate eight squares around the player. Similarly, enemies will move in a straight line and only be able to attack the player character from within those open squares. This feature makes it so that the terrain in Diablo 1 can be uniquely utilized during battle. If the player stands in a corner, then they are only vulnerable to three enemies at a time. Taking advantage of the simplicity of the gameplay can be an easy way to quickly overpower opponents.
Should You Play It?
Diablo 1 is undoubtedly still worth playing, especially for only $10. Now that Diablo 4 has been confirmed to release after 2021, it's the perfect time to become better acquainted with the world.
It makes sense for a company to remaster the game that is widely considered to be its superior alternative, but why not give Diablo 1 a remaster as well? Plenty of players, new and old, want to experience the original side quests and story arcs in a way that is more accessible for modern-day gamers. Tons of people have tried to recreate the Diablo 1 map in other games. Multiplayer may not be the best way to experience it, since it takes an incredible amount of skill to not hurt teammates in its original iteration, but the single-player campaign is still an incredible gaming experience in 2021.
Diablo 1 is currently available for PC.