In our official review of the game, I praised Diablo III: Eternal Collection for its buttery smooth performance on the Switch, in both docked and handheld modes. Since then, I’ve had more time to play even more in handheld mode, and it’s probably going to be one of my main go-to games for travel now.
After you’ve beaten Diablo III’s campaign mode and experienced the story for the first time, you’ll find that the game’s only just starting. With Eternal Collection, adventure mode is made available right from the start, which is great for returning fans who just want to jump straight into the grind without having to plow through the story yet again. And with seasonal play, Diablo III becomes the ultimate loot game that you’ll want to bring with you whenever you’re out and about.
First, there are some limitations to seasons as I’ve discovered this past week. For the most part, you don’t need an internet connection to play your seasonal character. However, your Switch does need to be connected in order to continue your seasonal game. Once it’s all loaded up, even if your connection drops, you’ll be able to keep playing with no interruptions, even if you sleep the Switch in the middle of the game.
Once all that’s out of the way, though, Diablo III: Eternal Collection is a total blast to play on the go. In fact, adventure mode’s structure lends itself well to this kind of play style. In adventure mode, your goal is to jump from act to act, clearing bounties for massive amounts of experience and loot. Bounties are mostly kept short, and can usually be cleared in 10 minutes or less. And the same goes for Rifts, though those can take a little longer to clear, and are usually best experienced with other players anyway.
With how short the bounties are, this means that Diablo III is essentially the perfect “short commute” game to play. And if you’re taking a longer trip somewhere, the loot grind in Diablo III is so fast-paced that you can easily grind continuously for hours on end without stopping anyway.
Most games on Switch are largely great for traveling and commuting, but the best ones are usually from the rogue-like genre (hello, Dead Cells), or casual grindy games like this one. Make no mistake; Diablo III has a pretty hardcore following, especially when you decide that you want to really dig into seasons and move your way up the leaderboards. But for us casual players, Diablo III is easy to pick up and play even if you’ve been away from the game for a while. And with how seasons reset your progress every few months, you never get the sense that you’re way too behind in progress to catch up.
While I wouldn’t recommend playing local co-op in handheld mode, as most of Diablo III’s shared menu issues are still present, the game also works flawlessly if you have multiple Switches connected via wireless LAN. This means that the game is great as a solo travel experience, and doubly fun if you’ve got someone with you who’s into the grind as well.
Diablo III: Eternal Collection’s smooth performance on the Switch continues to impress me, especially as the enemy density starts to increase as you get into the higher Torment difficulty levels. Diablo III is definitely staying in my Switch library for the foreseeable future, alongside the other traveling gems like Dead Cells and Enter the Gungeon. Long flights have never been so exciting.
