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{{quote|''Stay a while and listen.''|'''Deckard Cain'''}}
 
''Note: This page is for the first two games. [[Diablo III (Video Game)|Diablo III]] has its own page.''
 
A [[Hack and Slash]] game series from [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. Notorious for having [[Play the Game Skip Thethe Story|an elaborate backstory and plot that nobody ever follows]] concerning a war between [[Heaven and Hell]]. As a sort of simple graphical [[Roguelike]], [[Random Drop|the pursuit of the]] [[Rare Random Drop|perfect randomly-generated equipment]] and [[Level Grinding|character build]] to satisfy one's inner [[Munchkin]] gives the game tremendous replayability.
 
The first game was essentially a huge dungeon crawl, consisting of 16 levels of increasing difficulty under Tristram, the only town in the game, where various NPCs provide you with quests, healing, and equipment. The goal was to get to the [[Big Bad]], Diablo, in [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]. The non-canonical third-party expansion pack ''Hellfire'' added eight new separate levels, four new quests (a quest to kill another Diablo-esque baddy in the crypt near the church, [[Lighter and Softer|a quest from Lester the farmer, a cow quest and a quest to retrieve a teddy bear]]) as well as three more characters (Monk, Bard and Barbarian) in addition to the original three ([[Fighter, Mage, Thief|Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer]]), but you had to enter a special edit to a text file to get the last two of those quests and new characters.
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The third game in the series, ''[[Diablo III]]'', was announced in June 2008 and was released on May 15th, 2012. Trailers for it are on Blizzard's homepage.
 
Meanwhile, the developers of the first two ''Diablo'' games, Blizzard North, resigned ''en masse'' and formed "Flagship Studios", which continued to produce [[Hack and Slash]] games, specifically ''[[Hellgate London]]'' and ''Mythos''. After Flagship folded, the same people formed "Runic Games", which produced ''[[Torchlight (Video Game)|Torchlight]]''. All three titles can be considered [[Spiritual Successor|Spiritual Successors]] to ''Diablo''; they certainly all play similarly.
 
See also ''[[BaldursBaldur's Gate: Dark Alliance]]'' and ''its'' spiritual successor ''[[Champions of Norrath]]''. A character sheet is on the works.
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=== This game series is the [[Trope Namer]] for: ===
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* [[Barbarian Hero]]: The Barbarian is available as a character class in ''Diablo II''.
* [[Battle Trophy]]: In ''II'', after a victory in [[PvP]] mode, you win the ear of your foe.
* [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti]]: ''Diablo II'' has scores of them.
* [[Big Good]]: Tyrael.
* [[Big Red Devil]]: Guess who?
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* [[Dying Town]]: Tristram in the original ''Diablo'' and the Kurast Docks in ''Diablo II''.
* [[Elaborate Equals Effective]]: Used with the armors.
* [[Elemental Powers]]: The basis of the powers used by the Mage Clans. The "traditional" Clans, exemplified by the Sorcerer of I and [[Distaff Counterpart|Sorceress]] of II, use [[Playing Withwith Fire|Fire]], [[An Ice Person|Ice]] and [[Shock and Awe|Lightning]]. The Necromancer, also from II, uses Death (combines [[Necromancy]], [[Blood Magic]] and [[Black Magic]]) and [[Poisonous Person|Poison]].
* [[Elite Mook]]: Quite literally. Elite mooks basically have a different colored name, more hit points, some new powers, and drop higher loot. Otherwise, they're the same as their type. They also tend to be surrounded by a cadre of their type, which are normal except for a single buff.
* [[Empire Withwith a Dark Secret]]: The tie-in novel "The Kingdom of Shadow" centers around this, coupled with [[Crap Saccharine World]].
* [[Enemy Summoner]]: Sand maggots in ''Diablo II'' which spit poison and lay eggs.
** The aforementioned "summonomancers" can have a small army of skeleton minions, plus a merc and a [[Golem]].
* [[Enough to Go Around]]: Played straight with anything [[MacGuffin|you need to advance the plot]], but unfortunately averted with the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Charms]] dropped by the [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]]. Except the [[Bragging Rights Reward|Standard of Heroes]]. Figures.
* [[Eternal Equinox]]: Present in ''Diablo II''.
* [[Everything's Better Withwith Cows]]: The Cow Level.
* [[Lava Adds Awesome]]: The spells "Volcano" and "Molten Boulder".
* [[Evil Laugh]]: Seems that Baal finds many things funny.
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* [[Fishing for Mooks]]: A strategy in some cases as you do not want to go wading into large melees, the barbarians taunt can be used to lure enemies away from other enemies. This can help in defeating fallen shamans but is generally regarded as a waste of skill points.
** Waste of skill ''point'', arguably, though the ability to get basically any monster that does anything complicated or dangerous to stop doing it and instead walk right up to you and get its ass kicked is handy sometimes.
* [[Fling a Light Into Thethe Future]]: Evilly subverted. Azmodan pulls this with himself and his forces, sealing himself away until the heroes who defeated his fellow Prime Evils would be unable to stop him.
* [[Fourth Wall Observer]]: Malah in Lord of Destruction.
{{quote| {{spoiler|"You knew it would eventually come down to this. Kill [[Big Bad|Baal]]. Finish the game!"}}}}
* [[Full Set Bonus]]: Some armor and items give these.
* [[Get Onon the Boat]]: You need access to a ship to get from Lut Gholein to Kurast in ''II''.
* [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]]: Technically Duriel. He ''is'' an important lore character and has a detailed backstory, but unlike Andariel he received no build up or foreshadowing for his fight.
** Somewhat justified since he's essentially a [[Bait and Switch Boss]] there to end the act with a [[It Was His Sled|twist]] by making the player think they're about to face Baal.
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** This is compounded by the so-called "LCS" - or "Lying Character Screen". Literally the only number it can't get wrong is your level, and inaccurate stats can appear as early as level 3. The attack (and related chance to hit), defense (and related chance to be hit), and damage numbers are particularly meaningless, having absolutely no relation to the actual figures used once you have a few different sources of bonuses to these things.
* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Goatmen and catmen. Also inverted, humans are in fact demon/angel hybrids.
* [[Happy Ending Override]]: The second game is one of the few games that matches ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' in the sheer brutality of this--''everything'' you did [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|only made the problem worse]]. It looks like the third will apply this to the second as well.
* [[Hard Levels Easy Bosses]]: For most decently well built characters, act bosses tend to be more of a punching bag than any challenge. The real killers in the game? Multiple packs of unique and minions, bosspack archers and other dangerous melee monsters like frenzytaurs, gloams and tomb vipers, and generally speaking powered up regular mooks.
* [[Hard Mode Perks]]: Drops on Nightmare and Hell difficulties are much better.
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* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: The narrator and Mephisto are voiced by Paul Eiding, who some may instantly recognize as the voice of the Colonel from Metal Gear Solid.
** And Aldaris from [[Starcraft]].
** And [[Ben 10 (Animation)|Grandpa Max]]
** Marius and Lysander the potion merchant were voiced by Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler in the 1960s [[Batman]] series.
** Charsi the blacksmith in Act 1 is voiced by Glynnis Talken, who also voiced Sarah Kerrigan in [[Starcraft]].
** The voice of the Druid and Nihlathak in Lord of Destruction is [[War CraftWarcraft|The Prophet]] and [[Legacy of Kain|Raziel]].
** Natalya sounds a lot like [[War CraftWarcraft|Jaina]].
* [[Hospitality for Heroes]]: The reward for one of the quests in ''Diablo II'' is that shopkeepers give you a discount.
* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place]]: The Den of Evil. Halls of the Dead. ''Flayer Dungeon''. In fact, it would be easier to list locations that aren't this trope.
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* [[Money for Nothing]]: Money has three uses in ''Diablo II''. Reviving your mercenary, repairing your gear, and gambling (in which you spend money on an item with unknown properties). It's still one of the best ways to get good equipment in single player.
** Early on, it's a good idea to buy gear regularly. And every now and then, you can get some useful but expensive gear from the right merchant. Especially for the Paladin, the Sorceress and the Necromancer, because they need specific weapons that don't drop more often than others, and cannot be acquired through gambling.
* [[Money Spider]]: ''Everything'' you slay drops gold, from [[Big Creepy -Crawlies|giant bugs]] to [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|yetis]] to [[Demonic Invaders|demons]]. Usually they drop an item or two as well.
* [[Mook Maker]]: Several enemies can revive dead enemies (such as the fallen shaman). Also, the player character, if he plays as the necromancer, as he has the ability to summon [[Helpful Mook|Helpful Mooks]] (such as skeletons and Golems).
* [[MST3K Mantra]]: This is a requirement. [[Fridge Logic]] avoided.
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* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: Light tentacles instead of wings, tend to wear armor and face-concealing cloaks. As far as alignment goes, they are ostensibly on your side, but don't expect any help from anyone other than Tyrael. Appear to lean towards being dicks, again with the exception of Tyrael and a few novel-only angels.
* [[Overdrawn At the Blood Bank]]: And not just monsters. The Paladin in ''Diablo II'' has a skill called Sacrifice, which grants him bonus damage in exchange for losing some health. Every time he uses the skill, about a gallon of blood spills out of him.
* [[Overshadowed Byby Awesome]]: It's hard to make the ''Diablo II'' expansion climactic when the previous game ended with you effectively beating ''the Devil in Hell''.
* [[Palette Swap]]: The different monster varieties, from 3 to 6 variants, as well as champion/unique monsters.
* [[Pamphlet Shelf]]: Bookshelves in the series usually yield a single spell tome at best.
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** The Barbarian Ancients guarding the World Keep: [[Fire, Ice, Lightning|Talic, Korlic and Madawc]].
* [[Saving the World]]: What you are supposed to do.
* [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]]: The Soulstones.
* [[Sealed Evil in Aa Duel]]: In ''Diablo II'', {{spoiler|Tal Rasha uses his own body as an extension of a soulstone to imprison Baal. He is [[Grand Theft Me|possessed]], and has to be tied up and magically bound in a tomb, his spirit fighting Baal's for eternity. Or until Marius came along and tugged on the ringpull. Ooops.}}
* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: The randomly-generated items and monsters sometimes have matching affixes, leading to things such as "Flaming Longsword of Flame" and "Ghostly Ghost".
* [[Shout-Out]]: In ''Diablo II'', it's possible to hire a mercenary named "Jarulf"; being the screen name of Pedro Faria, the author of the greatest ''Diablo'' resource ''Jarulf's Guide''.
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** And a bunch of the Rogue mercenaries are named after staff on the old "official unofficial" diabloii.net site.
** Also, one of the rare 'Dirk' class weapons is called 'The Diggler,' which is almost certainly a reference to the movie ''[[Boogie Nights]]''.
** Let's not forget the lore behind the Blessed Hammer skill. If you use it, you're channeling the energy released the day when a bunch of nuns nearly sacrificed themselves to save a holy Hammer. What's the name of that hammer? Why, the [[Galaxy Quest (Film)|Hammer of Ghrab Thaar]], of course, according to the game's manual.
** In the first ''Diablo'', there was a Staff called the 'Rod of Onan' which could never ever be a reference to the Biblical story of the sin of Onan. It summoned golems from the earth.
** There's also the mini-boss [http://www.d2tomb.com/images/unique_monsters/summoner_ani.gif The Summoner], who bears a distinct resemblance to [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|a certain kids TV Villain...]]
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* [[Skill Point Reset]]: ''Diablo II'' is infamous for its unforgiving skill tree system which forced many players to start the game all over again when it turned out their skill build wasn't any good later on. Fortunately a one-time reset was added in a patch, and a certain late game item also allows this, making it slightly less jarring.
* [[Skyward Scream]] - The first game's ending.
* [[So Long and Thanks For All Thethe Gear]]: If you hire a new mercenary while you have an old one, the old one disappears with whatever equipment you gave him/her.
* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]] - The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLs6OHlSdyE Cain Rap.]
* [[Speed Run]] - Diablo manages to hold two speedruns that are astounding for entirely opposite reasons: The original ''Diablo'' was crushed in [http://speeddemosarchive.com/demo.pl?Diablo_Sorcerer_312 0:03:12](!) through obscene luck manipulation and glitching, while ''Diablo II'' has a much longer run of [http://speeddemosarchive.com/Diablo2LoD.html#Sorceress100p 4:22:xx] beating the game 100%... on Normal, Nightmare, and Hell, all from a fresh file.
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* [[We Buy Anything]]: Shopkeepers love to buy items from you.
** In the first game, only related items can be sold to the relevant shopkeeper. The sequel relaxes the rule and plays this trope straight.
* [[What Happened to Thethe Mouse?]]: When you kill Mephisto, Natalya disappears. There's still no word as to where she went.
** She described herself as a "Hunter of Evil" whose job was to hunt down rogue mages, and Tal Rasha was a rogue mage (to put it lightly), so it could be inferred that she went after Baal... but you never see her in ''Lord of Destruction'' either.
* [[Yin-Yang Bomb]]: The entire human race is the result of interbreeding between angels and demons.
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