It’s been just over ten years since the release of Diablo 3, six if you want to include that game’s final expansion, and Blizzard has finally dropped a fourth game in the over twenty year long series. And while Blizzard definitely returns to their roots in some ways with Diablo 4, a lot of it feels like a hollow shell of missed potential.
Diablo 4
Developer: Blizzard
Price: $70
Platform: PC / PS5 / XSX
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Set 50 years after the previous game, Diablo 4 sets the stage of Lilith’s return to the land of Sanctuary as she seeks to regain control of the realm. There’s some genuinely great moments in the game’s plot, with Lilith having a lot of really fun bits of horror to her as we get to see her persuade folks to her cause, but a lot of the story kind of fails to live up to the potential sparks of it tease. It’s a genuinely great setup having a character like Lilith who at times almost feels more like an antagonist than a villain as you get these few moments where you wonder if she’s slightly in the right, but Diablo 4 never really goes all the way with the concept. Instead you get a pretty by-the-numbers plot that plods along until it sporadically gets interesting again. Aesthetically though, Blizzard absolutely nailed the look of the game, returning to that grimy gothic look the series was known for that the third game deviated from. Some areas in particular really nail that sense of somber dread where it just feels like living in Sanctuary really fucking sucks.
The best and worst thing I can say about Diablo 4 is that it’s definitely Diablo. You can tell Blizzard took the game and went through it with a fine comb to modernize every aspect of the game which works in some regards, but in others it feels odd how it ignores the innovations in the genre its peers have done in the time since the last Diablo game. You’ve got your five classes: barbarian, druid, sorcerer, rogue and necromancer; and they all generally feel really fun to play as. Watching the carnage of limbs flying as your whirlwind as a barbarian, or filling an arena with shocking lightning bolts never gets old. There’s a chunky visceral nature to the violence happening that’s aided by some absolutely excellent sound design that treats you to some wonderful bass. The whole of Sanctuary is open to you right off the bat (for the most part) and while I was a bit hesitant about the game’s “always online” nature (you’ll see players running around the world with you) I kind of started to enjoy it. Seeing a group of folk tackling an event, joining in and then hanging together for a bit before you all inevitably part ways leaves you with a genuine sense of camaraderie not many games accomplish.
Something I absolutely love is the quality-of-life features the game has. Once you’ve beaten the campaign with a character, you’ll unlock a campaign skip for all of your following characters that lets you dive straight into the endgame content. Additionally, things you acquire with one character, such as the Lilith statues strewn around Sanctuary that give stat bonuses, are already unlocked for any other character you might have. In a game meant to be replayed multiple times, I can really appreciate any moves at minimizing even a bit of the grind in a grind heavy genre.
And now while there are aspects of the game that help minimize the grind, Diablo 4 still seems stubbornly intent on keeping you on it when it comes to the core gameplay loop. You never really ever get a taste of that power fantasy you’d sometimes get in past games, or with others in the genre in general. Because the game is semi-nonlinear, allowing you to do some acts out of order, the entire game world scales with you, which makes it so you never really feel like you’re getting one over on any of the enemies. There was never really a moment where I felt like I could confidently strut into a room and wipe the place clean in an instant, which despite its faults is something Diablo 3 did very well at giving you bursts of that power fantasy every so often. The entirety of Diablo 4 just feels like a constant uphill grind against enemies that are always just slightly better than you.
Diablo 4 has a skill issue, in that the game has a severe problem with letting you experiment with skills. The core issue is that the game completely discourages you from doing any sort of build besides the one it clearly wants you to do. For each class, the entire skill tree is always nudging you to picking skills that focus on inflicting “vulnerable” on enemies, because right now it’s absolutely the most viable build to do. Try anything else and you can feel you’re not doing as much damage as you could if you built your character the way Blizzard very clearly wants you to.
The other issue here is the lack of skill slots discourages you from even trying to experiment. You have two skills tied to your mouse clicks (which are likely to be the basic Core Skills that build up your mana for mana fueled skills) and then you only have four additional skill slots on top of that. It’s just not enough. You’ll very quickly find four skills that are absolute no-brainers to have on that skill bar, so why replace them with something that won’t work as well? The game desperately needs either two or three more slots on that bar, or a toggle that lets you have another set of four skills when the toggle is hit. This, paired with the lack of build options, just makes Diablo 4 feel so antithetical to what’s a core pillar of the entire genre.
That’s the conundrum with Diablo 4 though: while practically every aspect of the game is objectively well done, it also feels incredibly focus-tested for safety. Just because this might be the best that Diablo has been in years, we’ve also been starved for Diablo for quite a while, all while its peers have been making waves in the genre like Path of Exile or Torchlight 2. Blizzard didn’t try to shake things up whatsoever and instead opted for an incredibly safe, if not well packaged gift. Now you could argue this was done to make sure they found their groove first, and that whatever future expansion or sequel will be where Blizzard really gives us something exciting and new, but that’s something only time will tell. In its current state, is Diablo 4 fun? Sure, it can be. However it’s not likely to leave a lasting impression on you and I’d be pressed to ever include it if anyone ever asked me for recommendations of games in this genre.
The Final Word
Diablo 4 has bursts of genuine fun in its oppressively gothic world, but as well-made as the entire thing is, it just ends up feeling incredibly sanitized and safe for what’s supposed to be the grand return of the franchise.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair
