![]() The Playdate’s best game is coming to Nintendo Switch and PC this month Let’s just hope Blizzard doesn’t make us wait too long. It’s a bit too early to say if I’ll sink hundreds of hours into the Switch version, but this is the closest I’ve felt to the magic of the PC release, and it helps bide the time until the inevitable Diablo 4 announcement. Besides Seasons, you can play locally with up to four players, and Diablo 3 is simple enough mechanically to introduce to those who don’t typically play “hardcore” RPGs. The only part of Diablo 3 on Switch that requires an online connection is Seasons, the revolving door of challenges that tasks you to create a temporary hero for a chance at unique rewards. It’s a great way to level up and, since there’s no story to follow, you can play it for just minutes at a time without losing track of what’s happening. Adventure mode offers access to random bounties and rifts, the game’s random end-game dungeons. Normally endgame content, it’s scaled down appropriately so you can track down bounties and explore Nephalem Rifts with low level characters. If for you have no interest in returning to the campaign for the umpteenth time (I wouldn’t blame you - the story doesn’t hold up), you can jump straight into Adventure mode. When wading through the large Chamber of Suffering, I’m able to find a group of enemies, start attacking, and then look up to see what’s happening on TV. When focused on the massive final form of Belial, I’m staring intently at the screen, dodging his attacks and hurling piercing projectiles at his monstrous face. In that sense, it’s the rare game that can be enjoyed as both an active and passive experience. While I’ve given my full attention to Diablo 3 for most of the 40 levels I’ve played, I multi-tasked for a few of those hours by watching TV while playing. Diablo 3 is a game of many short quests - five minutes for a bounty here, 15 minutes for a rift there - and that’s perfect for mobile play. The isometric camera angle has a distinctly portable look to it, and the combat, which only requires you to hold a button to keep attacking, is simple enough to pick up and play at a moment’s notice. Yet I found myself craving each level, each upgrade, each new skill. This isn’t the first game I’ve enjoyed on Switch after already playing it on a different platform, but it’s by far the one I previously had the most experience with, which, at face value, should make it the least exciting of Switch to start all over. Building a new character, a Necromancer, from level one to level 40 (so far) has proven good fun. Yet after sinking 15 hours in the campaign over the course of three days, I began to appreciate this baffling omission - or, at least, I came to tolerate it. I didn’t think my previous characters would port over, but I hoped to see some integration of achievement or other rewards. When I first booted Diablo 3 on Switch, I was disappointed to learn that it doesn’t support. I’ve played through Diablo 3 at least a dozen times, but on Switch, I once again feel compelled to stick around for one last journey to hell. Now, more than six years after its launch, Diablo 3 and all of its add-on content has arrived on Nintendo Switch as Diablo 3: Eternal Collection. I even bought it again for PS4 the following year. I purchased the subsequent Xbox 360 port, and though I bounced back to the PC version, I was surprised how well the game translated to the couch. I put more than 100 hours into Diablo 3 in the first month. But once those subsided, I became engrossed in the dungeon crawling loot-based loop. Like many others, I experienced annoying connection issues in those first few days that hindered my experience.
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