Diablo’s Hardcore Mode Defined Indie Gaming’s Most Popular Genre

A typical game of Diablo could start with the protagonist teleporting into a closed room and finding themselves in the middle of an elite pack of monsters. The creatures would then converge on the character, in many cases killing them. A journey that may well have lasted a week or more is reduced to an icon on the character select screen that simply reads “deceased,” all in an attempt to save the player from 25 seconds of extra walking.