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Comment by nilkn | Hacker News Reader

I'd really enjoy seeing a modern ARPG that is legitimately unsettling and dark in the way that Diablo was (and D2, to a slightly lesser extent). We've got D3, which has really fun gameplay but feels commercialized and looks like WoW, and we've got PoE, which has a lot of really brilliant ideas and has a darker theme but at no point is ever actually unsettling.

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You might want to try Grim Dawn. If Turn-based works too then Darkest Dungeon.

I'd recommend against Darkest Dungeon. Whereas Diablo 1 & 2 carefully cultivated its gothic aura, DD went full-on edge and melodrama.

I respectfully disagree. Darkest Dungeon captured the essence of Lovecraft in ways I've not seen anywhere else. I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes brutally hard turn based 1 dimensional combat. The game requires a lot of compromises and you will suffer casualties. It's a rare game where I spend almost as much time preparing for a dungeon run as I take doing the run. The artwork also really spoke to me.

About the one warning I give about the game, is that it doesn't explain in game enough early game. I got frustrated because the early game is really punishing and it's too hard to figure things out since many interactions are probabilistic. I finally found a wiki on the game which allowed me to understand what I was doing wrong (and which dungeon artifacts should be skipped when no protection). After that I fell in love with the gamr.

I just picked up Grim Dawn last weekend and I've really been enjoying it. :)

I can't help worry that Path of Exile has become a victim of its own success. Lately the updates seems heavily tilted towards trying to "catch" hardcore (one character death and it is out of the league) characters, leading to a "death spiral" of sorts between the top players (more often than not streamers that dedicate their days to playing the game live) and Grinding Gear Games.

I agree that D3 was a let-down. Story, graphics and all lacked the spirit, and thereby, the greatness of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.

Path of Exile is, IMO, the true successor to D1 and D2.

Have they fixed the cantseeshit issue where environment would always occlude the player and items and enemies?

I remember that this was an issue on initial release and the devs where adamant on not fixing that or even acknowledging the issue.

I'd really recommend "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice". Headphones REQUIRED :D

My fiancee showed me a gameplay trailer for that. "Unsettling" is definitely a word I'd use to describe it.

As a fan of horror, my observation is that the best horror (that is, the kind that sticks with you long after you've finished the story) doesn't come from spooky monsters (as much as I love imaginative monsters) or grisly gore, but the nightmares woven into real life. And that's Hellblade in a nutshell. "Unsettling" is a good word for it.

Sometimes I ask myself if the unsettling feeling I felt in Diablo was because I was too young and impressed by the horror. But I believe it's just that people can't make good games anymore.

Ha, I had the same realization! And it’s quite a shame. Consoles are so powerful today. It seems like a huge letdown that you don’t have more games that are as scary as D2.

I remember as a kid being incredibly scared to go from the “open” terrain into the dungeons in Act 1 of D2... I knew it couldn’t be any good. And then facing the terrible Anadriel... GOD I miss that game!

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