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Many years ago (I think it was back in 2011), Mystery, the author of Diabl-Evolution mentioned to me that he's collecting games that are highly similar to Diablo. He keeps a list with those games and from time to time ads new titltes to it that he encounters.
Since the internet has seen amny such lists, I thought it might be sensible to publish Mystery's take on the topic here and expand on it. So without further ado, this is a List of Games like Diablo, originally compiled by Mystery and expanded by me (and reduced by non-PC games):

Arcanum (has demo(s))
Beyond Divinity
Blade & Sword
Darkstone (has demo(s))
Dink Smallwood (has demo(s))
Divine Divinity (has demo(s))
Dungeon Lords
Dungeon Siege (has demo(s))
Dungeon Siege 2 (has demo(s))
Elixir
Fate
Gorasul (has demo(s))
Hexplore (has demo(s))
Lion Heart (has demo(s))
Loki (has demo(s))
Mythos
Nox (has demo(s))
Prince of Qin (has demo(s))
Revenant (has demo(s))
Sacred (has demo(s))
Satanica (has demo(s))
Seal of Evil
Siege of Avalon (has demo(s))
Soulbringer
Space Hack
Space Siege
Throne of Darkness (has demo(s))
Titan Quest (has demo(s))
Torchlight
Valhalla Chronicles
Vampire Redemption

Good idea! I haven't played any of these much, but it's probably worth mentioning that there's a demo for Dunegon Siege's add-on, Legends of Aranna (IIRC), and also there exists a demo of Space Hack a.k.a. Maximus XV Abraham Strong: Space Mercenary (also apparently released in Russian as Mercury 8).

Also I think I probably wouldn't call Arcanum a "diabloclone" (that's what these are informally called in Russian), as the game (I played a demo a while ago) made an impression of being much closer to traditional RPGs.

I've also heard NightStone is similar to Diablo, although I've never played the game. Absolute Games.RU has a pretty long list of unreleased games in the same genre, with titles completely unfamiliar to me. Maybe some have demos. AG's database does not show any years for unreleased games unless you open each game's page, so it's hard to tell what time periods we're dealing with.

Both AG and MobyGames suggest that Cybermercs bears similarities to Diablo, although in a sci-fi setting. Another suggestion by AG is Dispel, apparently a Korean title (some info can be found here). You might generally want to look into Korean games, as they seem to have had a penchant for RPGs and clones of popular titles.

Another suggestion via AG is Morning's Wrath. I think I heard the title before but not sure. Some info can be found at Wikipedia as well.

One more title not on your list (again, suggestion by AG) is Dark Tower Conspiracy, developed by a Russian company. You can check out some screenshots at the publisher's site.

Probably worth noting are too free games, Fire & Dragons and Gates of Destiny, which seem to have gameplay and setting similar to Diablo. Here's the developer's page. There are also open source games, Flare, FreedroidRPG and Summoning Wars.

There's one thing though. Although there seems to be a lot of isometric/3D third-person perspective hack'n'slash action-RPGs, I can't think of one that would follow the Diablo formula exactly: that is, randomly generated dungeons and a focus on grind rather than story. Most diabloclones seem to avoid random levels, and dungeon adventuring is interspersed with travels in the overworld and various quests of the go there, fetch that sort.

I'm on vacation right now and only got my phone, so my answers will be shorter.
I'm working on a way to classify games in a rougly meaningful way. Basically you take any game that rougly resambles Diablo and categorize it on a chart that looks like a darts board. left/right decides if you have one character or a party. top/bottom is realtime/turnbased. the rings denote the map style like roomed(satanica), openworld(sacred), randommaps(diablo), pregeneratedmaps(fallout), etc.

Sooooo, I'm back from my vacation and quickly made a template for the categorization of Diablo-ish games:
http://www.kultcds.com/Upload/BullsEyeDiablo.png

On this map you can easily identify the most important variables of gameplay of a diabloesque game. That way it's possible to see at a glance if a game fits your personal taste. For example I'm a fan of Single Character, Real-Time rpgs, no matter the map-type, thus, the top left quarter is my cup of tea.

Cool! (and welcome back!)

Although I'd then have to ask, what constitutes a diabloclone then if so many variables are optional? I mean, I've always assumed that in a strict sense, Diablo type games lie in the random maps sector of the top-left corner, with an additional emphasis on action as opposed to "role-playing" (that thing when the player comes to identify themselves with their character). Does the bottom-right corner include any party-based isometric RPG with turn-based combat? If yes, then what does it have to do with Diablo besides being isometric (or third-person 3D with sorta top-down view) and an RPG?

BTW, Divine Divnity doesn't have the same type of "isometric" perspective as most games usually do, but it has notable similarities to Diablo's gameplay. (Hopefully I don't sound overly critical!)

MrFlibble wrote:Cool! (and welcome back!)

Although I'd then have to ask, what constitutes a diabloclone then if so many variables are optional? I mean, I've always assumed that in a strict sense, Diablo type games lie in the random maps sector of the top-left corner, with an additional emphasis on action as opposed to "role-playing" (that thing when the player comes to identify themselves with their character). Does the bottom-right corner include any party-based isometric RPG with turn-based combat? If yes, then what does it have to do with Diablo besides being isometric (or third-person 3D with sorta top-down view) and an RPG?

BTW, Divine Divnity doesn't have the same type of "isometric" perspective as most games usually do, but it has notable similarities to Diablo's gameplay. (Hopefully I don't sound overly critical!)

You're pointing out an important point there, that I should have made clear earlier:
The games that are assessed on my darts board, are those that either look like something diablo-like on screenshots (e.g. Abomination: The Nemesis Project) or games that are Hack and Slash games (eg. Hellgate: London). The chart then helps finding how much they have in common with Diablo in terms of gameplay feel.

Ahh, got it

Do you think there may be cases which do not, formally, have many similarities, but in something essential are still very close to Diablo? By which I mean to say, do the variables all have the same "weight"? For example, should real roguelikes be treated as close to Diablo? Falcon's Eye and its successor Vulture are pretty close both on the random dungeon and isometric perspective scales, but NetHack is turn-based, and there are lots of additional gameplay features which are not really found in Diablo either.

BTW, what about mixed modes? I think RPGs more often than other genres indulge in changes of perspective (like Arkania's isometric combat, or first-person dungeon crawling in some Ultima games), and real-time v. turn-based events too. Are there any relevant examples among (potential) the Diablo-like games?

MrFlibble wrote:Ahh, got it

Do you think there may be cases which do not, formally, have many similarities, but in something essential are still very close to Diablo? By which I mean to say, do the variables all have the same "weight"? For example, should real roguelikes be treated as close to Diablo? Falcon's Eye and its successor Vulture are pretty close both on the random dungeon and isometric perspective scales, but NetHack is turn-based, and there are lots of additional gameplay features which are not really found in Diablo either.

BTW, what about mixed modes? I think RPGs more often than other genres indulge in changes of perspective (like Arkania's isometric combat, or first-person dungeon crawling in some Ultima games), and real-time v. turn-based events too. Are there any relevant examples among (potential) the Diablo-like games?

Yes, roguelikes are treated as Diablo (though, iirc, roguelike has by now boiled down to "permadeath").

As for mixed games: Turn based is usually stronger than realtime. By that I mean that the realtime exploration can be interpreted as turnbased exploration without an enemy party (even if that party is just an object to interact with and to wait for, like an alchemy aparatus).

But I've decided to not decide this on my own. Instead I'm implementing a survey system right now that allows for crowd classification of games. More on that later.

Sooooo,
implementation is done. 31 games are in the current list. People can now classify games when they feel like it:
http://kultcds.com/Diabolika/

Does it randomly pick games to ask questions about?

Once you have got a large enough sample, will you process the results statistically?

MrFlibble wrote:Does it randomly pick games to ask questions about?

Once you have got a large enough sample, will you process the results statistically?

Yes, it randomly asks you about games and a random gameplay attribute.

Currently The page does display games on the darts board if they can be categorized definately.
Pacing and Party are only one integer each, so it counts up or down and is idefinate at zero.
The maptypes are an integer each (and should probably be decreased by the lowest, so at leats one is always zero. The highest value is the map type. If the highest value isn't alone, it's indefinite.

I'm not planning on doing any statistics on the data, however one could say that it gives iformation on the popularity of games to some degree (people can only answer questions about games they know).

I've noticed that Druid actually plays out the diablo gameplay formula pretty much 100% in mid 1995 already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuLvNaCdGL0
The only major difference is that the map style is "Rooms" and not "Random Maps". The combat is realtime, you play one character and you basically do everything via mouseclicking (without nasty menus all over the screen). The demo is pretty stripped down, compared to the full game (if the slideshow can be trusted).

To me this means that the dawn of the modern H&S game isn't actually with Diablo but at least with Druid. As for public appearance, the early Druid demo is dated to late June 1995, and the earliest Diablo demo is from mid August 1996.
http://www.kultcds.com/Catalog/index.ph ... dn=&descr=
http://www.kultcds.com/Catalog/index.ph ... ir=&o=&dn=

Does anyone (MrFlibble?) know an earlier game of that exact type?

EDIT: Mobygames suggests Ultima VIII as similar.

Hallfiry wrote:The only major difference is that the map style is "Rooms" and not "Random Maps". The combat is realtime, you play one character and you basically do everything via mouseclicking (without nasty menus all over the screen). The demo is pretty stripped down, compared to the full game (if the slideshow can be trusted).

You can actually find gameplay videos showing the full game if you search for the full title (Druid: Daemons of the Mind), like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBDg3njRWMI

The monster AI seems very limited compared to Diablo though.

Hallfiry wrote:Does anyone (MrFlibble?) know an earlier game of that exact type?

I don't know the RPG genre well, so I have no idea. I think it's perfectly possible that you may find even earlier isometric RPG games with real-time combat. One thing though is that real-time gameplay was probably not favoured generally before 1992-94 because of the load it would place on contemporaneous hardware.

MrFlibble wrote:

Hallfiry wrote:The only major difference is that the map style is "Rooms" and not "Random Maps". The combat is realtime, you play one character and you basically do everything via mouseclicking (without nasty menus all over the screen). The demo is pretty stripped down, compared to the full game (if the slideshow can be trusted).

You can actually find gameplay videos showing the full game if you search for the full title (Druid: Daemons of the Mind), like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBDg3njRWMI

The monster AI seems very limited compared to Diablo though.

What's worse than watching videos of a bad game? Owning it. Turns out I actually own a copy of Druid, though it's still among the CDs left at my old place.

MrFlibble wrote:

Hallfiry wrote:Does anyone (MrFlibble?) know an earlier game of that exact type?

I don't know the RPG genre well, so I have no idea. I think it's perfectly possible that you may find even earlier isometric RPG games with real-time combat. One thing though is that real-time gameplay was probably not favoured generally before 1992-94 because of the load it would place on contemporaneous hardware.

You're right, hardware capabilites restrict the genre. I'd say that the possibility was there around the time of Commander Keen (1990/91), but I'd be surprised if there hadn't been any Diablo-like game by the time that The Horde (1994) came out (which had a lot of isometric realtime combat).

EDIT: Looking around on abandonia, I noticed Dominus, which as I saw in its demo, has a ridiculous amount of realtime monster movement. Al Qadim seems to be in the right direction aswell.
EDIT2: Now we're getting close to the difficult line between traditional isometric RPGs like the Ultima series and the newer variant that Diablo belongs to.