I am notoriously a big fan of the series but I don't wanna lose my time on writing a full review anyway.

All I can say is, the character customization via the skill system feels superficial and does not give me the feeling I play a unique personalized avatar.

The real or felt progression is completly out of joint with the power scaling enemies, the game is too easy but also simply does not let you feel any increase in power. You always slay the enemies at the same speed at all stages of the game. There's literally no progression.

Generally speaking the Lilith meta-plot and the unusual alliances in the holy war of heaven and hell are cool, but the story in detail and especially the writing itself is terrible sometimes.

The world map itself looks quite nice sometimes, but it really is not as interactive and dynamic as it pretends to be.

The combat feeling is good, but really just slightly above average. Lost Ark, Last Epoch and others have shown that the a-rpg industry has set other standards. Combat in D3 was nicer actually.

As the good AAA-company they are, Blizzard wanted to risk nothing with this title and thus they have gained nothing. The whole game feels average and superficial. Not bad though.

In this state not recommended. If you boycott Blizzard anyway keep doing that, they deserve no better.

For a few reasons, I have a hard time reviewing this game. For one, it's an online game that is continually getting content and new seasons with a variety of modes of play that I haven't messed with. But more importantly, I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the series and in recent years it's felt more on the hate side. I played a lot of Diablo 2 in Middle School. I couldn't really get into the first one since even by that point it felt a little too aged when I had 2. But over time and after much grinding, I liked 2 less and less until I kind of resented quite how much time I'd spent in it. These days I have almost no real interest in returning to it, even in the remaster. Does that mean the early times I enjoyed it were wasted? No, obviously not, that's not how enjoying things works. But it does mean I have a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to that game and I have a hard time looking back on those fond memories as positively as they were at the time. Then on the other hand, Diablo 3 I just kind of hated. It gets the whole "plow through enemies" thing down and that was satisfying for a first playthrough to an extent, but everything else about it felt so much more bland and the more cartoony look and tone of it just really sucked any life it could've had right out. After the novelty faded, I quickly came to resent it even more than 2. In fact, fun anecdote, I happened upon a super rare recipe for the boots of Deckard Cain's set or something and I could just craft them for dirt cheap with in-game money. So I did that over and over and sold them on the Real Money Auction House (back when it existed) until I'd essentially refunded the price of the game, then uninstalled it.

With all the disclaimers inherent in the above preamble in place, I can at least say that Diablo 4 is my favorite Diablo game. As my rating indicates, I still didn't love the game a ton, but I did at least like this game and many of those reasons were due to its solid answers to some of the issues I had with the previous games. So weirdly, I mostly have positive things to say about the game, but I simply didn't enjoy it all that much and some of that is less the game's doing what it's doing and more the fact I'm just not crazy about this series anymore and getting on my good side would probably have required breaking too far from its core concept.

Lorath expressing my feelings on Diablo.

The tone is probably my favorite part of this entry. Calling back to something like the 2nd game's ominous feel, the world of Diablo 4 is excessively grim and dark. The only sense in which the game is at all "cartoony" is the extent of how ridiculous the entire world is with constant gore, violence, and countrysides filled to the brim with evil cultists and monstrosities. It's weirdly funny to consider how many humans in this world are so devoted to zealotry for demonic overlords more than willing to sacrifice them or, at best, toss them aside on a whim. The game is extremely grim in a way that I find weirdly fun for how hard it leans into it. It's a world covered in overwhelming evil forces, oceans of bloodshed, and a few heroes who even when they are quite powerful, seem to be fighting against unwinnable odds in an eternal struggle that is bitter even in its victories. One of my biggest issues with Diablo 3 was that it felt more like a weird cartoon about a dark demonic setting that never really pays off on any of its promises. Diablo 4 decided to just plunge into its premise feet first and it mostly works.

This consistent tone is brought home by the far more cinematic feel of the story. While Diablo 2 had a similar tone in a lot of ways, I feel the cutscenes, stronger voice acting, and all around more immersive presentation just sold the setting so much more viscerally here. This was the game in the series I felt most invested in the story and like I was actually following and interested in the characters, which isn't something I expected. I will grant that this is certainly not the kind of world I would want even a few of my fantasy games to go for. But for a game doing its own thing, I do really enjoy this over-the-top gruesome demonic world in all its bloody glory. The presentation is just really cool and made it so much easier to get immersed. For a mostly top-down game, there's so much detail in all the environments and characters considering most of the time you can't even see much of it. The cinematics aren't too numerous but are pretty incredible, keeping up with Blizzard's track record of having some of the best cinematics of their time for pretty much every major release.

While I have a lot of mixed feelings on the scaled difficulty (the monsters in every zone level up with you, you can't go to a lower level zone and overpower everything), I on balance really appreciated how much more skill-based the game feels. There's a lot of "pick the right skill route/build" you can do, but the encounters in this game feel far more action-packed and reliant on actually learning your cooldowns, dodge timing, and precise skill shots in a way the series hasn't come close to previously. I got stuck on a couple bosses here and there and I had to just, as they say, git gud. I couldn't just go out and grind easy mobs for hours and come back at a higher level. I had to actually learn the boss's patterns and how to dance around and poke in with the skills available to my character or tweak my build with the relatively generous skill refund mechanic. This made the gameplay come alive in a far more engaging way than previous entries in the series.

I've played enough Dark Souls to know where this is going

Okay, so why didn't I like it? Mainly, for the unsurprising reason that it's still Diablo and I just don't enjoy that too much. For one, I don't like looter style games. The game handles it fairly well to the point it didn't get in my way too much and I liked that you can transmute your gear to get the looks you want, but I still just don't like games so focused on hunting down RNG-based shiny gear with a convoluted list of attributes and abilities. Beyond that, while I felt way more engaged with the combat in this game, it's still not a style I'm much a fan of. The different classes feel more differentiated than ever and the skill tree is much more varied and fleshed out, and the more action-packed gameplay I enjoyed more, but it still manages to feel like the Diablo style I'm just tired of. While I don't have a lot of concrete complaints, on the whole, I simply wasn't that invested in the game's story or gameplay. I never really minded playing it, but it felt more like something to just zone out with rather than a game I was particularly hooked on and near the end I had to push myself to finish it out.

As of now, I've completed the story once playing as sorc and I tried out each of the classes for the first 10 or so levels. Considering there's plenty to do in the game (my side quest log is presently maxed out and I have barely touched more optional dungeons and exploration), I'm likely to come back to it at some point. While I can't see it turning me around completely and making me love the game, I do plan to at least try necromancer more and seeing what else the game has to offer. I think Diablo fans should absolutely at least give Diablo 4 a try. There's a possibility the things I think are a big improvement will be off-putting for their departure from previous titles, but it's clear a lot of work was put into the game and I expect long-time fans would find at least something to like. On the other hand, if you're like me and much more ambivalent on the series, well, a lot of my feelings are that they made changes specifically to appeal to someone like me...and yet I remain not that into it. So I'm not sure people similarly disposed would love it much either. That said, even by my assessment, the game isn't bad; my 3-star ratings still mean I enjoyed the game and by no means regret playing it. As well, truthfully, it's probably somewhere between 3 and 4 for me, just definitely not 4 so far. That's not bad. I think the rating really only feels disappointing in that this is a huge game with so much effort put into it that despite mostly being impressed with the changes and feeling like a game couldn't be true to Diablo and get a huge thumbs up from me, I hoped to like it more.

I had a more memorable time with the prior two Diablo games, but the latest entry in the series feels in at least some ways like the best yet, and may be the ideal safe entry to start with for a newcomer. Superficially, it feels like a marriage of Diablo II’s amazing dark fantasy atmosphere with Diablo III’s more streamlined and flexible mechanics, which is already a win in my book. But it’s more than that, making some big changes including a confident leap into a more modern, seamless open-world design that’s different, but just as difficult to put down as those predecessors.

That open world feels massive, and it gives you a surprising amount of freedom, scaling content right to your level or just above it to ensure an appropriate challenge. There are downsides to that, but I find it works well here when content can be done at any time, especially in a co-op game and a game where mastery is less the point than efficiency and preparedness.

There’s a wealth of things to do of varying lengths, formats, and complexities, and since you can salvage or otherwise use literally any kind of gear, there’s always at least some decent reward for your trouble. I can always find something to do regardless of my mood, energy level, and how much time I have. There are some nice details like simple region-specific progression and challenges that make the experience of clearing out content and exploring feel that much better.

Combat feels great here in general. The designs of boss and elite enemy movesets strike a nice balance where they can really challenge your ability to position your character and manage cooldowns and resources, but you’re never really going to get cheaply one-shot with no way to correct course. I’ve only played as a sorceress character, but found my skills fun to use and my cooldowns and resources well-balanced. The overall skill progression feels nice and flexible, with interesting options for both offense and defense, and is accompanied by another big unlock tree starting at level 50 to keep evolving your character.

The story is also surprisingly good at points, managing to pull together a solid cast of characters from different parts of the world, particularly its compelling main villain. Since the first three acts of the game can be approached in any order, you do run into predictable dead ends, but the setup feels worth it by the end. It all ends with some setup for an inevitable expansion, but they satisfyingly close the book on the important stuff from the main game. There are also several memorable chains of side questlines as well as fun one-offs that help build out the world and inhabitants of Sanctuary.

I do have some complaints, but they’re surprisingly not technical, as the game works near-flawlessly for me and looks great, even while online and in the midst of its most chaotic combat sequences. I really would like to see side dungeons get more varied layouts, visual theming, and objectives to keep that stuff feeling slightly fresher—they got old much faster than the other content. Parts of the main story content are better than others, with some dungeons feeling a bit too linear or slow. Also I still think the base difficulty is a bit too easy at points compared to Diablo II, even on the harder starting difficulty, but it did still demand that I used my whole moveset and keep my gear up to date.

The postgame is off to a promising start, but wow, I still have so much to do just in terms of content that was available right away. It’s an insane time sink if you want one, but also you can just play as much or as little as you want and have a great time. I think overall this is a pretty big success. Like the prior game, even if there are still things I can point to and say "This was better in Diablo II," this is a game I may prefer to sink a bunch of hours into thanks to its more modernized, user-friendly design. I’ll be happy to keep playing for now and come back to it as it evolves over the next several years.

I finally finished Diablo IV campaign + Vessel of Hatred expansion with my wife and I cannot say I didn't have fun during most of the experience (I love playing video games with my wife after all and this is one of her favorite franchises), but what a mess this is. Its system over system over mechanics over new mechanics, every one more convoluted than the previous one and at the end I couldn't even comprehend what I was supossed to be doing.

My main issue is with the balance of the game difficulty. Hours before the end of the game we were already at level 60 and everything, including the final boss, was dissapointingly easy to kill, but we couldn't choose a higher difficulty because we didn't finished the main campaign yet.

After defeating Lilith in the most anticlimatic fight ever, we were able to get to Torment II difficulty... but it was still too fucking easy... except for the dungeon bosses that somehow killed us in one shot.

The only thing I really liked (besides playing with my wife) was the story and that's the thing most Diablo players choose to ignore.

My wife wants to keep playing just to complete more quests and doesn't care about this issues. I'll gonna still do it because it makes her happy, but what a mess this game is.

Note: These are my thoughts on the Open Beta release of the game from level 1 to 25 using the Sorceress class. There are no spoilers to the story.

Background
I played Diablo 1 as a teen, then Diablo 2 upon its release up until Diablo 3 released. I was involved in the closed beta of Diablo 3 and played D3 off and on for the next 8-10 years on PC & the Switch. I've played both Grim Dawn (60 hrs), Torchlight 1 (72 hrs), Torchlight 2 (130 hrs), and Path of Exile (600+ hrs). I enjoy all of these aRPG games and what they bring to the table.

Thoughts
So walking into Diablo IV's open beta, I was curious how they would mix up gameplay, and I was pleasantly surprised. It appears they've pulled some of the best elements from all of the previously mentioned aRPG games. Here's what I really enjoyed:

• The skill tree has some interesting synergies. I felt like Diablo 3 builds lacked one skill being boosted or complemented by another, and D4's skill tree allows this to happen.
• There are Strongholds in the game that have Elite Bosses that require a bit of time and attention to reach and defeat. I encountered a boss that was being shielded by several conjurers on several hilltops. I had to climb each hilltop, battling multiple enemies, and defeat the conjurer and a small miniboss that was guarding the conjurer in order to release the Elite Boss and eventually fight him.
• Boss fights are actually challenging. I remember the days when you'd fight Mephisto in Diablo 2 and you just had to either tank his 1-shot kill skill or stay completely off screen to dodge it because it was too fast to dodge on screen. That was pretty much it. Tank or cheese. Diablo IV had bosses that had multiple phases and a wide variety of attacks. And the projectiles that came at you were coming slow enough to dodge if you were smart about it.
• There are dungeons in each act. The beta only allowed us to explore Act 1, but there are dungeons strewn about that can be completed solo or with a party. Each dungeon has its own boss.
• There are potentially hundreds of bosses. With there being a boss for each dungeon, and potentially 10-20 dungeons in each Act, and then random Elite bosses throughout the Act's open world itself, with 4 or 5 Acts, that's a lot of bosses!
• None of the bosses I encountered felt exactly like any other boss. That's a lot of variation.
• The entire Act is an open world, so you can come upon players working to complete a mission and join them (without having to party up) or wait until they're finished and complete the mission on your own.
• Items with +x to all skills actually give you the skill (you don't have to have a point in it already). e.g. +2 to all defensive skills literally gives you +2 to all your defensive skills, whether you had a point in it already or not.
• You can respec your skills at any time. Respec'ing a skill costs anywhere from 1 to 100 gold (in my experience) and I did a full respec for about 1k gold a couple times to try out different builds.
• Different builds are viable and fun at the same time. Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 felt like they pigeon holed you into whatever build was powerful during the latest update or season, but I tried out several builds in the beta and felt like I could take on hordes of enemies and bosses without feeling underpowered.
• Different builds definitely mix up gameplay. My gameplay as a frozen sorceress using frozen orb was totally different than when I switched over to ice shards and different again when I tried out chain lightning. The way I moved & used skills was different for all 3.
• The sorceress never felt like a glass cannon. In previous games, if you didn't preemptively get your skills out fast enough, you could potentially get 1 or 2 shotted by enemies as a sorceress. I felt like in Diablo IV the sorceress had enough proc skills from items or synergies in the skill tree to take on quite a bit of damage without dying. Obviously you can't face tank anything, but I could take loads of hits, which proc'd an absorption shield from my items/skills to where I could get away in time to continue battling.
• The story doesn't suck (so far). Diablo 1's story was pretty vague, which was to be expected. Diablo 2's story was still vague, but added onto Diablo 1. Diablo 3's story was a train wreck, and neither Grim Dawn or PoE's stories are anything to write home about. But the D4 story so far was engaging and made the Act 1 world feel very cohesive and knit together. I understood why I would run through a town that appeared abandoned only to find its people in their homes worshipping some demonic statue.
• There are side missions galore. Diablo 2 pretty much sent you through the main quest and that was it. You had to complete quest 1 to get to 2 to get to 3, and so on. Diablo 3 introduced a few random events and quests here and there that weren't required to progress the main quest. Diablo IV adds on to this same idea with even more side quests to send you in all different directions throughout the Act.
• There are plenty of random events to stumble upon, from broken down caravan's that need rescuing, to demon bosses being conjured up by their human or goatmen slaves.
• The inventory is easy to use. Every item takes up one spot. You can easily change your wardrobe based on items you've found and salvaged, and save them into different slots (it appears you have to unlock slot 2 and on - monetization?)
• I didn't see any visible monetization in my playthrough. I felt like I could play without being whacked in the face with ads to buy something (a la Diablo Immortal style).
• There is a nice character customization at the beginning. Male/Female, skin colors, hair colors, eye colors, different faces. The basics..more than what it has been in the past. While not required for me to enjoy the game, it was pretty cool to see.

Things I didn't like

• The game doesn't feel super optimized. Heavily populated places or places with lots of assets were definitely graphically laggy, and I've got a pretty good computer (Ryzen 7 3700X) with a nice graphics card (AMD Radeon 6600XT). I hope they fix this.
• You can only use 6 skills. 4 hotkeyed to your kb (for PC) and left and right click on the mouse. This is unfortunate, since I found several items that gave +x to certain skills but I couldn't use them because I didn't have them on a hotkey. It would have been nice to put on ice armor or something and then use all my other skills, but that's not the way things work.
• I think you can have a dark undertone to your game without being overtly gruesome. Diablo 1 was pretty dark. This dark atmosphere was created by the music, (Matt Uelmen is a genius) the color palette, and the assets used in each level. In some of the cinematics I've seen, I think Diablo IV is trying to match or one-up PoE by adding in grotesque or gruesome elements in its cinematics. I don't think that's necessary. Put in some good music, assets, and color elements, and you can make it feel pretty dark without overdoing blood/gore/torture in the cinematics. Luckily, I didn't see this overuse of gruesomeness in the cinematics from my gameplay of Act 1, so I'm hopeful it remains that way. But some of the trailers/teasers I saw early on last year were pretty sick & disgusting. Not a fan.

At some point I will pick up the full release of Diablo IV and play it, however I will wait until the price tag is closer to $60 or less. Given how fast Hogwarts Legacy went from $70 to $55, my wallet is hoping to see the same trend with D4. :D

Here's 10 mins of gameplay with my lvl 25 Shock Sorceress:

It's interesting parsing through the different receptions of this game based on how "hardcore" you are in the ARPG scene. I'm not hardcore. I personally didn't get into POE because I found it to be too convoluted to be enjoyable. Whenever I'm required to look up 10 different guides and spend hours on a wiki just to start playing... I'm out. Once that level of research is required, the sense of accomplishment in making a build is hollow because you are effectively using someone else's hard work... and I'm too lazy to run hundreds of simulations myself.

D4 pushes this level of convolution once you get past the campaign of the game and the "real" game begins. The paragon system presents the players with lots of customization and chances are you will feel compelled to watch dozens of youtube videos to help you decide what to do... I don't like this type of design personally. There's a clear distinction between "depth" and "complexity." Complexity does not imply depth nor does depth imply complexity. For the former, refer to any Hideo Kojima plot; for the later, refer to Super Smash Bros.

In a lot of ways the design of D4 is interesting because it is trying to have it's cake and eat it too. The first half of the game has relatively simple build choices, clearly meant to pull in casual players. It's still complex compared to D3, but still reasonably approachable given the limited number of points you have to spend. You still likely will want to look up online an "optimal" build because it is still complex enough to NOT be intuitive. Then the second half and true meat of the game is more like POE.

I personally don't find "end game" ARPGs to be that captivating. The main issue I have with it is the repetitive and grindy nature. The game devs want you to keep playing their game, which is reasonable. The original Diablo pioneered this predatorial game design philosophy by creating the first gory and interactive slot machine. World of Warcraft then perfected this formula. Every time you click on an enemy and see those big numbers and a gory and pulpy explosion, your endorphins run wild. You are addicted and the cycle continues. Blizzard has added even more systems to try and arrest you in their game world. The Battle Season Passes are their answer to boredom. DOTA (the OG battle pass) and POE have demonstrated the effectiveness of this design approach. By forcing you to reset during a given season, you are compelled to start anew with some superfluous, season specific, rewards as the carrot on the stick. Play now or miss out forever! FOMO bro.

A contentious issue that was raised during the games beta was around the level scaling. Overall, this design decision didn't bother me and made sense. It's a large world and it's nice that after your first act, or on a second playthrough, you are free to go anywhere in the map without getting destroyed. The nightmare dungeon mechanic and late game areas change the level scaling a bit. Allowing you to enter dungeons that are much higher level than you. Admittedly I haven't made it far into the late game, but I think I played enough to get the gist. I also didn't mind the set over world map. Honestly, procedurally generated content sounds good on paper but is almost always awful in practice. Sure it's technically infinite content, yet with preset assets these randomly generated dungeons can still feel similar. Mostly due to how haphazardly they are patched together. You can't control pacing when things are randomly made up on the spot...

All that game design malarkey aside, it's a fun game. I enjoyed my time with it and found myself getting bored when I hit level 60. At that point, all I had to do was grind... I think I wouldn't have minded this grinding as much if the stats in D4 weren't so needlessly complicated... You have +damage to bleeding, +damage over time (which is what bleeding is...), +core damage, +all stats, +close damage, +crowd control damage... the list goes on and on... it gets to the point where it's no longer intuitive or clear what constitutes an upgrade... that's a big problem in my book. I need to run a simulation to see if this item is an upgrade?! And items drop all the time... This isn't depth... it's convoluted...

As far as the plot, it's alright. Not the worst fantasy story nor the best. It gets the job done and was kind of forgettable IMO.

Overall, I don't regret my time in this game. I might come back to it down the road on a later season, but I doubt I will play during the first battle pass... I need a break and need something less monotonous.

I do not get hyped that much anymore for new games, but there are some exceptions, and the Diablo series is one of them.

When Diablo IV was announced, and I watched the trailers, I shat my pants. It looked glorious and it would appear that Blizzard finally listened to their fans. It was delayed multiple times, but after a few months and a few scandals later, it hit the market.

The launch was (as could be expected in the Diablo series) horrible. Long queues, server outages, vague error codes and immediately, I got a slap to the past were I saw SimCity floating before my eyes. Only this time, it talked to me and it said: “sorry bro, we have technical issues so no game session for you on your only day off haha”. Eventually it worked fine, but this kind of bullsh!t has to be mentioned and cannot be ignored.

Anyway, In Diablo IV, you do not fight Diablo but Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred. She plans to dominate the world of Sanctuary, which she created with her Loverboy Inarius, by releasing the lesser evils, to unite them against the prime evils. You, the wanderer, start in a village full of cultist lunatics who worship Lilith and are rescued by the last Horadrim Lorath. After this, your plan to stop Lilith takes shape and through different regions, quests and boss fights, you eventually reach her, kick her ass and save the day. This is the short version anyway.

The graphics are great in Diablo IV. Not because of the stunning detail or perfect animations or something, but because the dark, grim graphics and art style from Diablo II are back. No more cartoony, jolly skeletons and zombies like Diablo III, but realistic, gory details in the background, less lighting in dark environments and a overall more grim look, the way it should be.

Soundwise, the game is also a big improvement over the previous installment. Hits and attacks sound a lot better and overall, I got nothing to complain here.

The introduction of a horse in this game is a God gift, now that the maps and regions are so huge. Speaking of this, the new mechanics on the world map, in which you can complete many, many side quests, find collectibles and conquer different dungeons, is a really big improvement and gave a really good RPG vibe. It was relieving to see this new style of playing and my first time completing everything, finding everything and earning my first-time rewards, was a good experience.

The game was/is relatively new, so maybe this point is not completely fair, but I encountered a lot of broken quests in Diablo IV. No game is perfect, but despite being reported to Blizzard a hundred times, some quests are still not playable. Another annoyance are the millions and millions of stats on items that do not make any sense. It messed with my head and I still don’t know what is the correct stat for my build.

Immediately after finishing the campaign, all its quests, its collectibles and dungeons, the boredom kicked in. I understand that this is the main problem for almost any player, but nevertheless, I suffered from it too. Yes, you can play further, grind your way into oblivion and eventually reach level 100, but what is the point? You did everything, collected everything, and unlocked everything level-specific.

Well, Blizzard’s solution is of course, Seasons. But, like with Diablo III eventually, this does not make any difference. You create a new, level 1 character, and do the same sh!t over and over and over again. To top it off, Blizzard does not want you to progress too fast, so they freaking nerf your damage, XP and almost any other stat. Well done Blizzard.

So far, I could excuse a lot of things. Diablo IV is, in way, a fresh new experience with improved mechanics, a far better progression system and a new open world to explore and complete. But then, corporate greed kicked in.

It is as I feared. After the predatory behavior of the vile filth that is Diablo Immortal, Blizzard introduced it’s “genius” marketing in Diablo IV. Spend hard earned cash on “deals and packs” of in game currency, that makes sure that you are always 100 short for the item that you want to buy. For now, the only thing you can buy are cosmetics, but I am sure that this marks the start of “legendary gems”, and “power orbs”. To keep the cash flowing, I am sure that you can buy your way to level 100 in no time, somewhere in the near future.

It disgusts me to the core, and although you can call it speculation, false worries, or call me pessimistic, Diablo Immortal proved that greed and “innovative marketing” has no limit and is not unthinkable. They did it once, they will do it again.

Diablo IV started strong, but slipped to corporate, “EA” standards, in no time. For this reason, I cannot recommend this game.

Such a terrible shame.