Sawt Falasteen - The video games bedeviling Elon Musk

The fourth main installment in the Blizzard Entertainment series "Diablo" came out in 2023 and a "Vessel of Hatred" expansion pack was released late last year.

Role-playing title "Path of Exile 2," available to those who pay for early access, is expected to be free-to-play when it is officially released this year by Grinding Gear Games.

Early talk among gamers is that "Path of Exile 2" is similar enough to "Diablo" to be considered a "clone".

Versions of both games are designed to be played on Xbox and PlayStation consoles and on personal computers running the Windows operating system.

- Dungeon crawling -

"Diablo" is considered a "dungeon crawler," a genre in which a player's character fights monsters, avoids traps, and solves puzzles to progress.

Gameplay, not surprisingly, often takes place in fantasy-like dungeons or chambers, with adversaries becoming increasingly difficult.

Victories earn rewards that players can use to ramp up their character's abilities.

Gaming industry analyst Mat Piscatella described "Diablo" as "a fantasy action role-playing game whose primary hook for players is the never-ending search for better weapons, armor and items in order to progress in the game to go find even more better weapons, armor and items."

"There's a story, of course, but really, it's all about the loot," he said.

- Grinding -

Using a tactic called "grinding," players repeat simple tasks to beat low-level enemies and amass loot.

"Basically, clicking on enemies a lot," Piscatella said.

Players can spend hours grinding, prompting doubt that Musk had that kind of time to fritter while running Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

The main story in "Diablo IV" can be finished in about 30 hours, with the time commitment multiplying if a player tackles all side missions.

The game also has an online multiplayer component.

According to industry watcher Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, the average "Diablo IV" player in the United States now plays between 10 and 35 hours per month.

The average per-player time spent in "Path of Exile 2" in the United States since early access became an option in December ranged from 37 hours to 50.7 hours depending on whether they were using consoles or personal computers, Circana determined.

- Barbarians and druids -

"Diablo IV" players get to choose from six classes of characters: barbarian, druid, necromancer, rogue, sorcerer or spiritborn -- each with its own strengths.

Players battle their way through dungeons in an open world, building up their characters as they advance through quests and the story.

There are also options for players to battle one another online.

Musk has posted video and comments indicating he has played barbarian and spiritborn characters.

"Path of Exile 2" is described in online gamer forums as a more complicated action role-playing game than "Diablo."

Online posts indicate Musk has used both softcore and hardcore characters in "Path of Exile 2," the former for acclimating to the game and the latter for testing one's skills.

Q.Najjar--SF-PST