Blizzard has already had one entry on this list and now it gets another for the magnificently macabre Diablo 2, a game that should have been considered a Class-A drug, for the first taste quickly gave way to cravings which did not diminish even after consecutive playthroughs.

The classes of D2

Look at me!: The classes of D2

The single player had the feel of any great RPG. It began in a simple rogue encampment and ended in Hell itself, dragging the player through endless dungeons, tombs and wastelands in the process. You chose a class from the simple archetypes of sorcerer, amazon, necromancer, barbarian and paladin, and customised your character through your equipment, skills and attributes. This degree of character customisation may be considered lacking by today’s standards but the Diablo series focused on hacking your way through swarms of enemies, not on deciding whether an aquamarine dye would suit your new cloth robes. Individualisation did exist and it revolved around enhancing your character’s potential to dish out incredible amounts of pain as quickly as possible.

The Diablo series may have been the bastard bloody offspring from a more conservative fantasy lineage, but it did not skimp on storytelling. The cinematics of D2 blew any other game’s cutscenes out of the water and into the toilet bowl. Gameplay was similarly enhanced by a score that persuaded us that we really were alone in those barely lit catacombs. The plot was not bloated by a never-ending supply of sidequests and so the main storyline of overcoming the evil Diablo and his brothers was always centre-stage. Modern RPGs could learn a thing or two from this simplicity.

Its multiplayer, however, was the real jewel in Diablo 2’s thorny crown and the reason for its endurance over the years. Battle.net was a gaming service that meant that players could chat and connect to multiplayer games to fight monsters or each other. In an age of Xbox Lives this may not seem like an impressive feat, but remember that large-scale, accessible multiplayer services began with Battle.net, which launched with D2’s predecessor in 1997. The fact that Diablo 2 has maintained a legion of players, who keep fanning its flames a decade on, stands as a testament to the unwavering potency of online gaming.

Additional media: Tyrael vs The Dark Wanderer; Diablo is slain; Player vs Horde