Diablo IV (2023)

There is just something about the depressing nature or presentation that just makes me not care about the Diablo story nor any of its characters. The world is awful and horrible and doesn’t seem like it will ever get better despite you genociding all the demons in your path. I force myself not to skip past the dialogue but I am not really listening or getting invested. I had a similar problem with Destiny.

Nonethless, I love the gameplay and enjoy the grinding.

I know there's an on-going debate about Diablo 4 vs. Diablo 3 vs. Diablo 2, but over the weekend I found a groove in 20–40 minute session of Diablo 4 and really enjoyed myself.

I loved Diablo 2's itemization and I may hate 4's once I get to the endgame, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the pace of drops in both the campaign and side quests. I'm bummed that I won't be able to find Uniques and Ancestrals and {{insert other fancy name}} until some later time, but low-level legendaries still feel pretty nice to get.

I've been watching streamers race to level 100 and I'm envious but my life is not like it was when Diablo 2 came out, so 8+ hour gaming session multiple days a week is essentially never going to happen. They're already discussing the ways Diablo 4 is letting them down and hopefully that means things will be patched once I get there!

Diablo IV rocks. It just does. Now, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore player by any means. I spent a few dozen hours on Diablo II back in the day, then a few dozen more on Diablo III - I didn't care for it - and then a little more again in Diablo II's PS5 re-release. Those were all just fine. But Diablo IV rocks. It absolutely oozes atmosphere, the story is surprisingly intriguing and accessible, the gameplay loop is satisfying, and exploration is the perfect amount of easy.

It took me a while to really want to sink actual time into it because it felt a little too easy but I think the patches that have nerfed things really helped balance everything out. It's not Dark Souls but it's no longer completely effortless. I can see myself sticking with this one for the long run and I'm interested to see how the endgame and seasonal content works.

Wow, that opening is something. I love that they are going after the old-school, super-dark feel.

As an aside, I think getting a long break in a game series is so beneficial. It allows the developers to re-visit the same formula years later without it feeling tired and too familiar. And it hopefully gives them time to fully bake the concept and implementation and refine what was great about the previous game. Diablo IV and Tears of the Kingdom seemed to have benefited from this. I am even excited about Assassin's Creed Mirage because although Assassin's Creed has had a ton of iterations over the years I took a long break from it and now am ready to get back into it.

In the open beta I tried out all classes up until level 7-8ish to get a feel for the general combat feeling which is essential to DIV more than anything else imo.

Rogue felt sluggish and was no fun. Sorceress and Barb were pretty cool, Druid and Necro okay. All of them felt in general average. The combat feeling didn't step up from D3 really. Well, there's a chance that more powerful spells in the late game will feel different. I hope they'll include the modification system for spells that make them look and feel different and more powerful.

But the enemy bodies just occasionally react on hit impact. It's no big step up I guess. Sad, if you think that Lost Ark really should've given some positive influence there, apart from its negative influence.

I didn't expect to see a Diablo IV update during a Microsoft showcase, but I suppose I better get used to it. From what they showed, I'm pretty excited to play it. Necromancer is a great ARPG class, though, I'm sure I'll just be playing the Sorceress as always. An open world has me worried but it always does, so I'll just have to wait and see.

The big problem for is I kept reading into everything they said to see if it'll be anything like Diablo Immortal. Nothing stood out but now I'm going to be on edge until the game releases and I get to see which micro-transactions exist and how gross they feel.