Diablo 4 activates and frustrates my lizard brain

polygon.com:

In the tired village of Yelesna, a man named Denysov hammers away at a studded wooden barrier flanked by a pair of stakes. “Been working on this door for days,” he mutters. “Not much else to do ’round here.” He doesn’t have anything to sell, he says to no one in particular, and this door should fetch a nice price. It’s a simple dream, but Denysov, who probably hasn’t ventured far from Yelesna, has no idea how many doors my Wanderer routinely annihilates on the path to gold and glory. In a kinder existence, perhaps Denysov would be a busy carpenter, living off the constant destruction of the Eternal Conflict — the unceasing war between heaven and hell — and the humans trapped in between.

But in this small, dark corner of the map, Denysov’s unfinished portal just might be one of the most overlooked cornerstones of Diablo mythology. I don’t mean the hypocrisy of the High Heavens or the comically doomed faith everyone has in the efficacy of soulstones. Diablo 4, like its predecessors, is a game about doors — pausing on the threshold of an open maw, bathed in unholy light and anticipation before you meet whatever’s on the other side.

When you think about the existential infrastructure of the game and its visual language, it’s doors all the way down, from humble gates and fiery red portals to ornate stone slabs and yawning caverns. I’ve funneled hordes of monsters through doors to create bottlenecks and pick them off at a distance. There’s a ritualistic, rhythmic power in piercing a series of gates before a major boss, running headlong toward a fate you can’t see until it’s too late. With the Butcher in the first Diablo, arguably the most iconic encounter in the series, the best cheese was usually trapping him behind a door