Since its debut in 1996, Blizzard’s Diablo franchise has served as the golden standard for ARPG titles, spawning countless clones and leaving a lasting impression on the gaming landscape as a whole. To invoke a tired meme, the formula “just works” — the straightforward gameplay loop of click, kill, and loot has proven endlessly satisfying for multiple generations of gamers, but there’s more to it than that.
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The trope of the hero (or heroes, as it were) standing against the encroaching legions of darkness, occult themes, and more all contribute to the franchise’s draw. The following games channel one or more elements of Diablo’s recipe for success — and if you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, they’re currently at your fingertips.
8 Children Of Morta
- Approximate Game Length: 15 Hours
- Genre: Roguelike ARPG
- Developer: Dead Mage
- X|S Enhanced: No
- File Size: 1 GB
Diablo fans should find a lot to love with Children of Morta — it’s an isometric dungeon crawler at its heart, so we’re in familiar territory from the outset. But the roguelike elements, retro-pixel art style, and nuanced gameplay mechanics offer charms all their own. Players will rotate through the members of the Bergson family as the playable characters, all replete with their own unique abilities and playstyles, as they quest and endeavor to root out the corruption plaguing the nearby Mount Morta.
7 Darksiders Genesis
- Approximate Game Length: 18 Hours
- Genre: Hack-and-Slash ARPG
- Developer: Airship Syndicate
- X|S Enhanced: No
- File Size: 11 GB
Though Darksiders Genesis takes an alternate gameplay route that diverges from the mainline games in the series, it maintained that same sense of fun found throughout the other entries. This is by no means a Diablo dungeon-crawling rip-off.
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Exploration and combat are key as Strife and War navigate the Void. The dialogue between these two characters is hilarious to listen to, and it makes controlling two of the Four Horsemen a more relaxing and engaging experience than might be suggested by the apocalyptic circumstances.
6 Minecraft Dungeons
- Approximate Game Length: 8 Hours
- Genre: Action, Dungeon Crawler
- Developer: Mojang Studios, Double Eleven
- X|S Enhanced: Yes
- File Size: 3 GB
If the hack-and-slash nature of Diablo were to be parsed down into a digestible, kid-friendly experience, then Minecraft Dungeons is the end result. Players must save an endless supply of Villagers from the evil machinations of the Arch-Illager. Up to four players can dungeon-crawl through the familiar environments of Minecraft’s world. While it features the mechanics of an ARPG, Minecraft Dungeons keeps things straightforward, making it an easy game to introduce someone to the elements seen in more involved titles.
5 Dante’s Inferno
- Approximate Game Length: 9 Hours
- Genre: Action-Adventure Hack-and-Slash
- Developer: Visceral Games, EA, Behaviour Interactive
- X|S Enhanced: No
- File Size: 6 GB
Dante’s Inferno certainly has a lot more in common with Devil May Cry than it does with Diablo, but the thematic similarities and meaty hack n’ slash gameplay should be more than satisfying for any fan of Blizzard's ARPG flagship. Taking a few very, very loose pages from the titular section of literary classic The Divine Comedy, players find themselves in the shoes of crusading knight Dante, who returns home to find his wife murdered. Defying even the personification of Death, Dante braves hell itself to save her soul. It’s certainly much more action than it is RPG, but it’s one hell of a good time nonetheless.
4 Enter the Gungeon
- Approximate Game Length: 56 Hours
- Genre: Roguelike Dungeon Crawler
- Developer: Dodge Roll
- X|S Enhanced: No
- File Size: 450 MB
Enter the Gungeon places the zaniness of a bullet hell onto a roguelike adventure. The Gungeon is an appropriately themed place where enemies, items, and locations revolve around firearms, making humorous gun puns more common than revolvers at a gun convention.
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The game has a steep learning curve, and it is clearly more oriented toward ranged attacks than melee. But it’s gameplay loop is as binge-worthy as anything produced by the Diablo franchise.
3 Ori And The Will of The Wisps
- Approximate Game Length: 12 Hours
- Genre: Platform Adventure/Metroidvania
- Developer: Moon Studios
- X|S Enhanced: Yes
- File Size: 4 GB
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is clearly a platformer that is more in line with a Metroidvania game than a Diablo clone. However, certain hack-and-slash elements alongside action RPG mechanics inspire a similar feeling as classic Diablo gameplay. Precise platforming controls aside, the style of combat introduced in Will of the Wisps would feel right at home in any dungeon crawler. In addition to that, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is gorgeous, providing a feast of vibrant visuals and delightful setpieces that will prove perennially memorable.
2 Warhammer: Vermintide 2
- Approximate Game Length: N/A
- Genre: Co-Op First-Person Adventure
- Developer: Fatshark
- X|S Enhanced: Yes
- File Size: 84 GB
If you’ve ever wanted to play Diablo from a first-person perspective, Vermintide 2 is likely the closest one can get, short of playing Borderlands. Set in the illustrious Warhammer Fantasy universe, players choose one of four heroes (with several class or “career” options for each) to stand against the encroaching hordes of Skaven rat-men and Norscan barbarians as they threaten to overrun the Empire. The gameplay finds a lot of direct analogues with Left 4 Dead, but the equipment systems and light RPG progression are sure to help it strike a chord with any Diablo fan.
1 Torchlight 3
- Approximate Game Length: 21 Hours
- Genre: Dungeon Crawl, Hack-and-Slash
- Developer: Echtra Games
- X|S Enhanced: No
- File Size: 7 GB
If one loves Diablo, then it’s difficult to go wrong with a good old-fashioned Diablo clone. Torchlight 3 is a solid ARPG offering that checks all the boxes — several unique character classes, hordes of enemies to mow down, and a full rainbow of rarity tiers ascribed to items that litter the ground after every battle, just waiting for players to scoop them up and pore over their statistics. That said, it’s not a clone in every sense of the word — it carves out its own identity, with class and progression mechanics in particular, offering Diablo fans more than enough fresh nuance to explore in order to keep their interest kindled.