Why I love Diablo 2, Act 1 | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these RPG You’ve never heard of it, but a Russian studio made a fantasy take on original Fallout way back in 2001, and it honestly kind of rules RPG Blizzard says ‘There’s actually millions of people that still play Diablo 3’ and those players have the right idea World of Warcraft WoW lead says they ‘lost something along the way’ by building dungeons for sweaty Mythic+ timers instead of 20-boss mazes like the good old days, but Labyrinths could be the solution RPG Grim Dawn marks its 10th anniversary with a triumphal update on its final expansion: ‘Grim Dawn will not be going out with a bang, it will be a tremendous roar’ MMO Project: Gorgon has recaptured the old-school MMO magic I thought was dead and gone by letting me ask a pig about its mother so hard it dies RPG OG Diablo 2 devs are ‘proud’ their classic is still getting love, even as they compete for attention with a new ARPG: ‘We feel the pressure, but I don’t hate them for it’ Third Person Shooter Helldivers 2’s siege of Cyberstan is the greatest galactic campaign the game has seen so far RPG Cara Ellison, senior narrative designer on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 before Paradox switched developers, discusses her love of Troika’s original RPG: ‘Everyone on the team helped really make that maximum goth’ Life Sim Stardew Valley has basically become the Tolkien of cozy gaming World of Warcraft WoW’s revisiting old zones for Midnight and The Last Titan because not every story ‘has to be told within the context of a new continent’ Gaming Industry Doom co-creator John Romero adores Ghost Recon and has over 3,000 hours in World of Warcraft: ‘God, I lived in that game every day for five years’ RPG Thanks to Diablo 2, Blizzard might’ve found a way to fix Diablo 4’s loot fatigue in its next expansion RPG Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy might just have everything I want from a CRPG RPG Diablo 2 gets its first expansion in 25 years, featuring a new class, and finally, decent inventory management Games PC Gamer’s Game of the Year Awards 2025 PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Resident EvilArc RaidersBest PC gearGame Quizzes Games RPG Why I love Diablo 2, Act 1 Features By Jody Macgregor published 2 March 2026 I remember when all this was fields. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter WHY I LOVE (Image credit: Blizzard)In Why I Love, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it’s brilliant. This week, Jody remembers Diablo 2’s dark opening.It’s weird to feel affection for dreary bogs with names like Blood Moor, even if they do look like backdrops against which Kate Bush might do an interpretive dance at any moment. But Act 1 of Diablo 2, from the first time I left the Rogue Encampment to the moment I caught a caravan east, is carved into my bones.Everywhere you go in Act 1 feels like somewhere you could have walked to from the first game. The fields, the graveyard, the haunted monastery, these places all inhabit the same idea space as Tristram. They look like locations from old movies like The Blood on Satan’s Claw, or a Hammer horror with vampires in. For the duration of its first act, Diablo 2 was a direct sequel in a way the rest of the game wasn’t.You leave the Rogue Encampment, a conveniently compact hub compared to the more spread-out later towns, and either follow a rough path to various points of interest or immediately go off-piste into the wilds. You might find an optional dungeon, or a mysterious book on a pedestal that leads to a sidequest. Where the first Diablo was claustrophobic, a single dungeon beneath a village, Diablo 2 promised wide open spaces. Here is where that promise pays off. 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