Diablo 4
Your favorite Action Role Playing Game is back and bloodier than ever. Diablo 4 improves upon nearly every core gameplay mechanic from Diablo 3 while introducing a few great quality-of-life features that make this journey to Sanctuary the best yet. While some of the quest systems seem dated, the main story is delivered beautifully, breathing new life into the series.
- Fantastic Story And Characters
- Return To Darker Art Style
- Well Balanced Classes And Skills
- Outdated Quest Mechanics
- Lacking Gameplay Innovation
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Lilith has returned to Sanctuary and is hellbent on reclaiming the world she helped create, even if it requires slaughtering thousands of her children. Although many of us have already spent countless hours ascending to near godhood thrice over to take down the titular big bad demon, Diablo 4 is all at once a return to form and welcome departure from the franchise's established norms. Yes, a confusing statement, I'm aware. But hang on, allow me to explain — let's start with the new mommy in town and resident big bad, Lilith.
The Lords of Hell are slowly regaining their strength, and another invasion of Sanctuary seems inevitable. That is at least how Elias, the fallen Horadrim, sees things. And that fear and misguided sense of purpose is enough to make him take matters into his own hands, summoning Lilith back from the Void to eradicate the Lords of Hell and reshape the world in her image.
Enter you, the latest hero-in-the-making destined to save Sanctuary from the horrors that Lilith will leave in her wake. Not long after stumbling into a small village blanketed in a treacherous storm you’re drugged and prepped as a sacrifice to Mother Lilith. Luckily, you are the main character, so naturally some stranger saves you at the last moment. After setting the score straight by massacring the entire village, you learn that not only were you drugged, you were fed the blood of Lilith. Normally this would convert even the most devout follower of Inarius, but you seem unfazed, only gaining a small enough connection to Lilith to see her movements, a welcome advantage. What follows is an epic tale of you overcoming every horror she throws at you and Sanctuary.
Despite the nearly three decades worth of robust lore, the Diablo series has always struggled with delivering the main story in a compelling way. Sure the cutscenes are always cool, but the classic tale of good vs evil is always played out through two-dimensional villains who have no real motivation for their actions other than “that is what the bad guys are supposed to do.” In Diablo 4, Lilith could not be more the opposite. Unlike the Lords of Hell, Lilith feels like a real character. She has a compelling backstory, complex motivations, and is relentless in the pursuit of her ideals. For the first time in the series, I can actually sympathize with why the antagonist is doing the things she is doing, a vital ingredient in the making of a great villain. The same three-dimensionality also extends to many of the other characters in the game. Although there was plenty of loss and hardship in the prior games, it feels much more heart-wrenching and sinister in Diablo 4, making the story and characters quite possibly the best improvement the game brings to the series.
If only the same were true about the core gameplay. Diablo 4 feels almost too familiar, failing to really innovate significantly on anything the prior games did. There are some considerable quality-of-life improvements present like the addition of mounts, an easily accessible transmog system, a variety of frequent world events, and the addition of swappable Legendary gear Aspects. The rest just plays out like Diablo 3.
Each quest, for example, consists of “go here, kill this, come back” - quite possibly the biggest letdown of the game, especially when considering how high the bar has been set with other AAA titles. This makes completing each quest feel like a mindless chore that you do solely in the hope of scoring one or two pieces of better gear. This tired formula could have easily been fixed with a bit more thought, I mean, just throw a few puzzles in there for our sake. Thankfully, the voice acting, setting, and story behind these quests are well done, which helps compensate for the lack of innovation. One of my favorite missions had me getting high on some incense and following a giant snake hallucination through the swamp in search of the Tree of Whispers. Although there wasn’t anything complex about the gameplay itself, the setting and dialogue kept things interesting and really exemplified the improvements made to the storytelling and world design.
Despite the shortcomings, I still had a lot of mindless, hack-and-slash fun playing through the gameplay loop. Each class feels refined to near perfection, with complex skill trees that significantly change your playstyle depending on your build. The comprehensive rebalancing and introduction of new skills make some of the available classes feel completely different than they did in prior games. I chose to play as the Rogue first, and after unlocking a few abilities and seeing it all come together, I could wipe the dumb grin off my face. As I approached a mob of enemies, I’d fire my shadow-charged Penetrating Shot through their ranks, causing the center of the group to be afflicted with shadow damage which ultimately led to a massive chain of explosions that moved throughout the group, obliterating the lot of them.
Each class feels refined to near perfection, with complex skill trees that significantly change your playstyle depending on your build.
I had to take a very different approach when playing as the Druid. Although I could diversify my skills in the early game with the Rogue, this made me weak as a Druid. Luckily, I was easily able to refund my skill points for a small fee, allowing me to make a more specialized Werebear build that absolutely wrecked my enemies. In addition, the transformation skills can be triggered mid-combo now, allowing me to quickly transform in and out of my Werebear and Werewolf states and cast my elemental abilities seamlessly on the fly. This was a nice improvement over the fixed minute-and-a-half-long transformations you were locked into in Diablo 2.
For my third playthrough, I chose the Sorceress. While this class had historically always been strong, it mostly functioned like a glass canon, which made it a bit intimidating to try without having a party to take some of the hits for me. In Diablo 4, the Sorceress feels less fragile, and more like a battle mage. I found I could hold my own in the middle of the action, and had a plethora of powerful attacks to incapacitate my enemies. On top of this, the Sorceress had some of the most powerful skill combinations out of the three classes I tried. Casting the Inferno Ultimate summoned a giant flaming snake that coiled around my enemies, inflicting massive fire damage. After unlocking the Prime and Supreme Inferno skill boosts, the Inferno spell would now pull enemies in and grant me the ability to cast fire spells for no mana cost while Inferno was active. Nothing quite like spamming my Meteor spell ten times to disintegrate my enemies.
One of my favorite changes in Diablo 4 was the return to the darker art style that I had fallen in love with in Diablo 2. The world feels gritty and rancid with the rot of Hell’s armies. While exploring Guulrahn, I couldn’t move an inch without stepping on the blood-soaked carcass of some poor, mutilated soul. An invading cannibal tribe had wiped out the town, only saving a few people to fatten up for their food supply. The sheer horror of stumbling into a room where a Horder was hacking away at his latest victim only to turn his behemoth belly toward me - chef’s kiss. This is what Diablo is all about, and I am thrilled to see it delivered so beautifully.
While the pre-launch version of the game left me a little bit underwhelmed, I still had a great time throughout the roughly 25 hours it took to complete the six acts. The story plays out beautifully and is perfectly complimented by the meticulously crafted world design. There is also a ton of end-game content like higher World Tier difficulties, Nightmare Dungeons, World bosses, and the return of Seasons, providing plenty of options to keep you entertained long after the story wraps up. And since Diablo is a live-service game that will continuously evolve over the next several years, I have no doubt that it will get better and better the more the community plays it. I mean, Diablo 3 was damn near unrecognizable at the end of its run when compared to the launch version due to the sheer amount of evolution that occurred.
Whether you are a diehard fan, or this is your first Diablo experience, you are bound to enjoy your visit to Sanctuary. Although there are some areas that feel a bit behind the times, the core of what makes Diablo games fun is present and polished to near perfection.