Games

Path of Exile, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 2

Torchlight 2 spoiled me for basically the whole genre. It is a classic ~~Roguelike~~ ARPG dungeon crawler but has so many thoughtful player centric quality of life features. Inventory is full but don't want to stop kicking butt? You have a pet that can run back to town for you, sell your stuff, and even buy a "shopping list" of potions and scrolls for you. It'll even run and pick up loot for you. I have trouble playing other games in the genre because I keep running into problems Torchlight 2 solved that I didn't even think about. It also has mods available to add even more or keep things fresh. It's getting old but because of that you can run it on anything. It's a damn good game.

Edit: seems I didn't know what a roguelike was

Last Epoch and Grim Dawn are probably most in line with Diablo, I think.

People have mentioned Path Of Exile, and I've played a lot of it, but I don't think it feels particularly like Diablo any more, even though it started out that way. It's quite unforgiving, and even a lot of experienced players feel like they need to follow build guides rather than work things out for themselves. Its learning curve is hundreds or thousands of hours long. Of course, the reason for that is that it has incredible depth, variety and complexity, which may be a selling point or a deterrent depending on what you like! I definitely like the complexity of it myself, but it's very overwhelming when you're new. The reason I don't think it's all that in line with Diablo these days, though, is simply the pacing of the gameplay. You blow up screens of enemies at a time, and your deaths are often so fast that you're not really sure what killed you.

Path Of Exile also heavily revolves around its trading economy. Item drop rates are balanced around players being able to trade for them, which makes trading somewhat mandatory (unless you're a bit of a masochist). The economy is fairly complex, with there being a lot of different currencies, and quite a lot of factors that can affect the value of an item. I'll let you decide whether you find this appealing or not - some people do, some people don't! I do think it causes some issues with the balance and progression of the game, but it's interesting to say the least, even if you wish you didn't have to engage with it.

Grim Dawn feels a little mechanically dated at this point but it's still solid. It's got some good builds, the dual-class system and constellations system make for some interesting variety. It's got an offline mode, as well as online co-op play. Its real selling point, though, at least for me, is it's absolutely soaked with atmosphere. It's very, well, grim, but the world is really immersive and it has a great setting in general with a solid story and some great lore. It also has quite a lot of mods available (including the Reign Of Terror mod I mentioned in another comment in the thread that adds the entire Diablo 2 campaign and all its classes to Grim Dawn).

Last Epoch is more mechanically interesting than Grim Dawn, I think, but it's lacking in the story and world-building. It's still in early access, although its full release is next week. It has quite a lot of depth and complexity, but it's all done in an intuitive way that means you can jump into the game blindly and work things out for yourself fairly easily. It has a good variety of skills, and the fact that each skill has its own fairly comprehensive skill tree means you can play the same skills in very different ways. It has a wonderful itemisation system that does a great job of making you actually engage with the loot you find on the floor (which is an issue in other loot games), and some of the best crafting I've ever seen in a game. The dev team also manages to come up with some really creative and somewhat intuitive solutions to things they perceive as issues in other ARPGs.

Last Epoch's biggest drawback is that its endgame is currently a little lacking in comparison to POE (which has a very rich and deep endgame, but is also a ten-year-old game that's been updated constantly). It's still far, far better than Diablo 4's, though, and will obviously only improve as more is added. Last Epoch has some truly brilliant systems in place for the devs to build off - and frankly, I still think it's great now - but it'll only get better as more content gets added over time.

I love all three games I've talked about for different reasons, and honestly, they're all well worth playing!

Path of Exile.

Grim Dawn

Definitely I would check out Grim Dawn and Last Epoch.

Grim Dawn is an insanely sprawling game with tons of class combinations and builds, made by the people who made titan quest. The graphics are dated as hell but it never stopped me from loving it. I also find the lore very fun.

Then there is Last Epoch, which is coming out on the 21st. I've been playing it for 3 years, even done some testing for them. Personally some of the more casual friendly things that you can't find (like the crafting actually being amazing, seasons giving content to non-season characters, etc) just are unmatched and give the game a very good flow. It will be out in 1.0 in ~ a week and I definitely think it's worth a glance because I find it is a great middle ground between diablo's dumbed-downness and Path of Exile's sweatiness.

Here's a few:

• Grim Dawn
• Titan Quest
• Sacred Series
• The incredible adventures of Van Helsing
• Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor - martyr
• Divine Divinity
• Torchlight series

Then there's Last Epoch and Path of Exile

Grim Dawn is goated. Not a big ARPG fan but this one just hits different for me. Simple enough for anyone to get into but can get complex enough that min-max theory crafters will have a blast messing with the games systems.

Torchlight is Torchlight. You might like it because not Diablo, but Torchlight.

Last Epoch seems to be the most popular recent one. It's currently in early access but it's releasing in a week or so.

Last Epoch. It has the best crafting and best skill system of any ARPG IMO.

Last Epoch

It's pretty good, releasing next week.

Path of Exile.

Its 100% free, so you can play it like a demo until you are either fully in or bored.

It gets a season refresh every 3ish months with an entirely new mechanic, so most experienced players restart it 4 times a year, play a new build, and then stop playing when bored and return at the new season so its always got reasons to peek back in and see if you want to rejoin.

The leveling system is a little daunting at first, but the base game is completely playable newbie blind even if you pick "suboptimally" from the skill tree. If youre too worried about FoMo, there are tons of guides online for builds, both top level and newbie friendly.

The attack/skill system is very interesting and completely moddable, tons of replayablility.

If you like diablo, try PoE.

Last epoch, path of exile, grim dawn, Torchlight 1,2 and if you want to suffer 3, if you can suffer through Korean p2w nonsense then lost ark, and also titan quest. All of these games are on multiple platforms.

Yes.

Torchlight 1 and 2 (diablo 1 and 2 but better)

Path of Exile (diablo the MMO)

Titanquest (my personal favorite non-diablo diablo game)

The Ascent (diablo with guns!)

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (D&D diablo on consoles)

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (Fallout Diablo on consoles)

And so many more... There was a time in the 90's after the success of Diablo 1 where everyone and their mother was making clones of Diablo.

Torchlight 2 if you like the gear gathering and optimization.

Because you want to avoid Diablo because Diablo, maybe you could get Diablo used on console, you don't need a Blizzard account or an internet connection and since it's used the money wouldn't go to Blizzard. It might be an option, depending on why you want to avoid Diablo.

Minecraft Dungeons

yeah, i'll see myself out

Torchlight 2 should scratch that itch. To me, Path of Exile is something the Diablo series could have been but wasn't exactly? Though I haven't played it in a number of years, so I may be mis-remembering exactly what it was like. I seem to think it was more like a point-and-click RPG with kinda Diablo-like combat.

Here's an RPG that I haven't seen listed yet- Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. I spent a LOT of hours on this one back in the day (circa 2001, by Sierra-Online and Troika Games)

Path of Exile is like Diablo for adults. It's much more dark and intense in my opinion. It's worth checking out because the New Zealanders who make it are genuinely good guys.

Last Epoch scratches that itch real good for me and it's hitting release in a few days.

I've had a lot of fun with Book of Demons, which is a bit more simplified, but really respects whatever amount of time I have to put into it!

Not mentioned yet: Chronicon. A small indie game that doesn't take itself very seriously. It has much less build variety than something like Grim Dawn (obviously) but it's got some, and it's aiming to be a much more streamlined/casual experience. Won't demand as much of your time and attention, will deliver hugely satisfying colorful explosions across the screen. When I'm in the mood for an ARPG it's a toss up whether I'll install this or Grim Dawn.

Grim Dawn and DevilutionX. https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX

DevilutionX is basically Diablo but opensource

I'll add Chronicon to the list! Its approach to endgame is quite similar to D3, but more entertaining imo. It was also made by a solo dev, which is very impressive.

The incredible adventure of van helsing.