What are the best games like Diablo? You’ve come to the right place if you need to get your fill of hitting stuff, leveling up, grabbing loot, and wearing unreasonably jagged and oversized shoulder pauldrons.
As Diablo 4 lights the way for Blizzard’s acclaimed RPG game series, you might be looking for an alternative to can keep you occupied between Diablo 4 seasons. Our Diablo 4 review is a testament to just how definitive Blizzard’s formula has become, so you can bet our recommendations for the best games like Diablo factors in staple characteristics like camera angle, world setting, and tone. Whether you’re looking for a home away from Hell or a different vibe altogether, there’s an ARPG here for every flavor of Diablo fan.
The best games like Diablo are:
V Rising
V Rising isn’t your typical Diablo clone. It behaves more like a survival game than an ARPG in many ways. You awaken as a freshly-turned vampire thirsting for blood. Once that need has been stated, your first priority is to gather materials to build a base. The sun is a slow killer for a vampire, so you must spend the daylight hours sequestered in your castle, crafting weapons and building structures until night falls. The cover of darkness grants you the freedom to hunt at your leisure, pillaging townsfolk for their loot and their life – just be sure to return to your castle before sunrise.
The combat is where V Rising’s resemblance to Diablo truly shines through. Its open world is brimming with bosses, and slaying them often bestows powerful weapons and spell upgrades. The combat UI is a dead ringer for Diablo, with a quick cast skills bar and the quintessential life orb, albeit with another twist: feeding on enemies doesn’t just restore your life; it also grants additional buffs dependent upon the enemy you’re feeding off, draining their power. V Rising is a fun survival game both while playing solo and with friends, but it’s definitely earned its place on our list of games like Diablo.
Last Epoch
As a relative newcomer, the Last Epoch developer has learned much from those who came before it. By deciding to put mechanics first, you have a relatively deep gameplay experience full of tech trees to ensure the diverse Last Epoch classes all have ways to create some of the best Last Epoch builds. It goes a little further than most, with a robust Last Epoch crafting system and even some Last Epoch loot filters to help players find what they want. If you’re a gameplay-first kind of ARPG fan, then this is the one for you.
You can read the Last Epoch review for so much more about the technical stuff and why this game is so great, which describes it as “a welcome addition to the team.” If you do decide to start, you’ll probably want to know the Last Epoch server status in case it’s all clogged up or if it’s worth just playing Last Epoch offline.
Halls of Torment
Okay, so the gameplay of Halls of Torment may have more in common with Vampire Survivors than Diablo. Still, this 30-minute gauntlet features familiar enemies and a visual style not too far away from the very first game in Blizzard’s demonic action RPG series. What’s more, the boss enemies act a little more like the Diablo bosses in that they have actual attacks with AoE rings to avoid.
And the best bit? The early access version of Halls of Torment not only has a similar cost to Vampire Survivors but there’s a free Prelude demo you can try for yourself and get a bite-sized chunk of the full game that doesn’t relent on the challenge. If you like it, you can even take your save game to the paid version, so there’s absolutely no reason not to give it a shot.
Lost Ark
Few MMOs have the slick controls, rich character, and loot progression of Lost Ark. It’s still one of the most popular PC games ever and regularly claims tens of thousands of concurrent players on Steam. Oh, and it’s free, so there’s no reason not to try it for yourself.
Perhaps most impressively, Lost Ark delivers cinematic levels of scope and spectacle throughout its main story, with large-scale battles that feel like something out of Lord of the Rings. And that scale extends to the number of roleplaying options available: nearly 20 Lost Ark classes across five archetypes, 60 levels to work through, pets, housing, crafting, and much more to master. If you want a game to consume your life like Diablo once did, then Lost Ark is the closest you’ll get.
Warhammer: Chaosbane
Warhammer: Chaosbane is a game like Diablo for fans of classic Warhammer. The gameplay, boss battles, class progression, and level design are all top-notch, and while itemization is a little lacking, the gameplay is sharp and addictive.
It may not boast a Diablo game’s robust endgame or sharp controls, but Warhammer: Chaosbane is a superb action RPG for as long as the main story lasts. You pick between five classic Warhammer classes and guide your chosen hero through a campaign filled with stained pus-yellow Nurgle smashing, cleaving, and burning through minions in dank sewers, embattled towns, and on castle ramparts.
All the loot drops are tailored to your class, so there’s much less junk to sift through, a welcome change from the Diablo series. The leveling process is also very satisfying, with powerful new abilities at every unlock milestone – the upgrades never feel like skill tree-filler, despite a total of 180 across all the heroes. Additional difficulties and modes like Boss Rush await you after rolling the campaign credits, but there are enough Diablo-like thrills in the story to slake your thirst for hacking and slashing hellspawn.
The narrative is definitely paint-by-numbers Warhammer, but it’s a good vehicle for some areas you’ll visit over the 15-hour-long campaign. However, the sewer sections do outstay their welcome.
Sacred Gold
There’s plenty of modern games like Diablo on this list, but don’t be tempted to overlook the golden oldies. Originally released in 2004, Sacred was the ARPG series that sustained Diablo fans during the long wait for Diablo 3. Whether you’re a heavenly Seraphim, a soulless Vampiress, or a heroic Gladiator, the open world of Ancaria awaits. Sacred doesn’t stray too far from the shadow of Diablo – you’ve got the easy familiarity of a top-down perspective, hack-and-slash combat, and a skill-based character progression system in a world that’s a little brighter but no less rich.
Sacred’s visuals might be dated, but the engaging questlines and challenging boss fights are timeless. Sacred Gold delivers everything you could ever want from this old game in one collection, including expansion packs with community-led optimization, additional regions, and a whole new storyline. We’d also recommend Sacred 2 Gold, a prequel set several millennia before the events of Sacred that introduces a whole new threat to Ancaria.
Book of Demons
Book of Demons probably has arguably the strongest aesthetic on this list. It’s all designed to look like a pop-up book, the kind you’d read when you were younger or maybe the ones you read to your children or younger siblings. But it also deserves some plaudits for twisting Diablo’s hack-and-slash gameplay into a deck-building hybrid.
The combat is simple, requiring you to play cards rather than mastering your hotkey bar. Still, things get more complex by having you manage special abilities and develop your character over countless dungeon runs. It’s a lot of fun, and there are actually two other games set in this world that are in development, too, just in case you fall in love with it.
Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition
Titan Quest might be on the older side compared to the other entries on this list, but there’s no denying its standing as one of the best ARPGs. From the minds of Brian Sullivan and Randall Wallace, Titan Quest offers a refreshing change of scenery from the post-apocalyptic horrors that games like Diablo often attempt to emulate.
Instead of hell, Titan Quest transports you to the Ancient World mythologies, where the gods task you to defeat the Titans rampaging across the earth. Along the way, you can expect to encounter epic heroes, such as Achilles and Odysseus, and traverse mythic locations like the River Styx and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
The Anniversary Edition of Titan Quest, released in 2016, overhauls Titan Quest’s geriatric multiplayer functionality and implements vital quality-of-life improvements, as well as some new heroes and bosses to encounter.
Grim Dawn
If you want a genuinely in-depth and complex ARPG experience, Grim Dawn probably fits the bill on this list of games like Diablo. There are many things worth noting about it, from the apocalyptic setting to the obscenely profound in-game lore, but the thing that makes Grim Dawn so enjoyable is its dual-class system.
As with any ARPG worth its salt, you get to choose a class, but what makes Grim Dawn different is the ability to combine classes to create a hybrid of your own. Add to that hundreds of item skills, and you begin to see just how versatile Grim Dawn’s class system is. If you enjoy abyssal landscapes and inventing builds, Grim Dawn is absolutely for you.
Victor Vran
Victor Vran has you playing as the titular demon hunter on a quest to wipe out evil and whatnot, which is standard stuff story-wise. It has excellent customization regarding abilities, weapons, and skills, with plenty of directions for your demon-hunting build-in. Everything is viewed from an isometric, top-down perspective, so if you’re a veteran of older RPG games, you should have absolutely no issue adapting to Victor Vran.
Make no mistake, this is not a game on the same scale as Diablo or Path of Exile, as the build diversity, game length, and world are limited. However, if you’re after something light and accessible with a grim aesthetic, this is definitely worth checking out. It’s also been updated a few times with DLC, adding new attacks, weapons, and even maps.
Path of Exile
Path of Exile is probably the most well-known entry on this list. It’s taken a few years, but PoE is now a massive, fully-fledged alternative to Diablo and an exceptionally deep experience in its own right. Better yet, it takes the formula laid out by games like Diablo and turns it into one of the best MMOs on PC. Even more impressive is that it’s free-to-play with a model that’s about as fair as they come.
There are countless PoE builds and styles of play to experiment with, and developer Grinding Gear Games is constantly updating the game with massive expansions every few months, not to mention the upcoming Path of Exile 2 release date.
Torchlight 2
Torchlight 2 is a slightly more colorful take on the Diablo formula, but undoubtedly, this is an ARPG for veteran dungeon-crawlers like Diablo. It has all the same mechanics and components that have made the genre what it is, but you can do extra things like sending your pet to the market to sell off your loot on your behalf.
It’s full of nice little touches like that, which help to make the game feel a little bit smoother and friendlier. Plus, there are loads of weapons and playstyles to mess around with.
Borderlands Series
The Borderlands series is an excellent choice if you’re looking for something that scratches the same itch as Diablo in loot spilling forth from every enemy you slay. There are heaps of nods to Diablo likes, including loot-hoarding minions, rarity tiers, and classes you can min-max whichever way you want.
Sure, it’s a bright, brash, and colorful series in terms of its tone, and switching from hack-and-slash gameplay to shooting might be a step too far. However, if you love nothing more than seeing a golden pillar of light bouncing out of a dead minion, then you owe it to yourself to at least give Borderlands a go.
That’s a wrap on our list of the best games like Diablo. For those who wish to stick with Blizzard’s classic series, we’ve got guides for all the best Diablo 4 classes, including all the best Diablo 4 builds. If you’re planning to traverse this new version of Sanctuary with friends, we recommend looking at our Diablo 4 crossplay guide for the full details. Finally, here’s a list of upcoming PC games for the coming year.