How much better would Diablo 3 have been if Kormac had been a llama?
Look, this is a serious question. I loved Diablo 3, but I also love the Torchlight series, and in a discussion with Anna Bell in our work Discord, she made the bold and accurate claim that Torchlight’s pets were superior to D3’s companions. I immediately asked her how she could say something so controversial yet so brave, of course, because once she’d dropped this truth bomb on me I couldn’t possibly refute it. I enjoyed the companions in D3 — well, I enjoyed two of them… Lyndon the Scoundrel leaves me cold. But the idea that, if I could feed Kormac a fish and have him turn into a big scary spider or send him back to town with all my junk I want sold, would have made Diablo 3 a much improved game simply cannot be denied.
It simply cannot.
Since this realization broke like sunshine across the skies of my fevered imagination I have been unable to shake it. There are a lot of Diablo-style ARPGs out there — Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Wolcen, the Torchlight series, Warhammer:Chaosbane, Darksiders Genesis, and more — and in almost every single one of them I can think of something I wish D3 had stolen. Borrowed. Been inspired by? Whatever, you get my point. But the pet system in the Torchlight series just might be the absolute best idea of the lot — it’s simple, it makes every aspect of the game better, and it lets you play pretty much any archetype of character and still get to run into battle alongside a beloved wolf or a cute cuddly fluff ball of a llama.
So let me ask you all — how much better would Diablo 3 have been if instead of Lyndon the Scoundrel, it was Lyndon the Scoundrel Bunny? Or if you don’t think that would actually be better (go ahead and be wrong, I don’t mind) then is there anything from your favorite ARPG you wish Diablo 3 had appropriated? Anything you hope Diablo 4 has the good sense to acquire before it comes out? Besides llama companions, of course, because that’s a must have.
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