When this game launched, it was not accepted very well by many gamers. And between Blizzard driving their reputation straight through the mud in how they treat both their audience (Overwatch 2 anyone? Diablo Immortal?) and their own employees, I can perfectly understand that. I myself watched this one come out with little interest, especially as one of the games to spearhead big game developers' campaign to increase the price of AAA games to $70. And to this end, I passed it up at launch.
However, months later, the game was already starting to show up on sale. Add to this a few people who wanted to play with me, and I decided it was worth a shot. It was not a bad choice, despite everything stacked against it.
Story: It's been 50 years since the events of Diablo 3 and it's expansion and both the heavenly and infernal powers have lost influence over Sanctuary due to the events therein. But power arbores a vacuum and there are those who see a potential to rise up and save their world from the eternal struggle itself. To do this, however, they need help from an evil previously banished from the eternal conflict long ago: Lilith.
You will play a character who is colloquially known as "the Wanderer" a soul who's choice to join this struggle was not your own. Rather you were chosen by fate when your horse was spooked and left you in the middle of the snowy wastelands and desperate for shelter. After finding and protecting a small town from the evils in the nearby ruins, they offer you what you need most... food and shelter for the night as well as some friendly company... so of course you accept. Unfortunately for you, the food and drink you all enjoyed that night was tainted. This little village has secret... they are cannibals who worship Lilith, making that stew incredibly suspect. More importantly, however, the drink was drugged and you are soon passed out at the table and at these new "friends'" mercy. Once you were out cold, they wheeled you away be prepared for slaughter. You are blessed by feeding you the blood and body of "The Mother" (read Lilith) before being carved up as more meat.
Fortunately for you they had just tried this on another who had enough wits about him to not take enough drink to go down and he was able to rescue you from your gruesome fate. In return he needs your help fighting off the village now out to kill you both. Still the damage was done... now that you have been fed the blood petals of Lilith, you are now connected to her... you have no choice but to find her.
From this basic point, you will spend the game following Lilith's trail of chaos and destruction as she and her following enact their vile plans. While these plans are not known at first, her very presence itself risks pulling this world into chaos, for her hated enemy is already worshipped far and wide in Sanctuary. You must find her and send her back before the world burns in their personal war.
There are some interesting sub-plots along the way which will make up the acts before the grand finale, but the basic goal will always remain the same: stop her. Why, however is far more interesting. What starts as simply "she is a threat to this world" changes and evolves as the reasons for what she is doing are made clear, as well as the roles of other players in the eternal game pulling strings around these events. This is actually rather fascinating to see, and well worth the trip alone... even if the end is predictable for yet another entry in this franchise. If you are a lore-fiend like me, you are going to enjoy this.
8/10
Graphics: When it comes to graphics, the Diablo franchise is known for it's prowess. From the very first game, every title has been a tour-de-force of it's day... from the first cutscene right to the last credit, and Diablo 4 is no exception.
You will open up watching a frankly stunning cinematic that shows Lilith's return to Sanctuary in all it's glory, setting a tone befitting this entire franchise even as it wows you for just how good it looks. Unfortunately this is not an in engine cutscene, however, so it will be a high-point a lot of the game just can't quite match, if not THE high point. Many cutscenes mix and match in-engine with pre-render, creating some amazing looking scenes that carry this dark tail brilliantly.
And the game itself will still look absolutely top-tier when actually playing too, putting it right there with the likes of The Talos Principle 2 which I have recently praised so highly! For this game, however, you will view everything from a top-down perspective as you run through the various landscapes of the world of Sanctuary. From frostbitten tundras to sand swept deserts and literally everything in between, the world is vast and varied, keeping things from ever looking to samey while you try to catch up with the Daughter of Hatred and return her to Hell... and that's before the supernatural twists to it all sink in and just add a horror aspect to the game no Diablo title would be complete without. As always for this series, the developers leaned on the current tech available to push the detail to the absolutely maximum it can. Candles and fires produce light and shadow over the arenas of sand, stone, brick, swamp, and sometimes even organic matter (to name a few places). The world is just so absolutely gorgeous it puts most games I've played to shame.
The characters you meet in this game will also carry the same degree of detail-work as you wander the cities and villages on your way. True, most of them will be humble villagers in rags or armored warriors of the religious order, but everyone comes in looking their best, even if there really isn't a lot I can say about them. You, however, are another matter.
This time around you actually have some customization available to you when you build your character's looks, which if I remember right is new to the franchise. It is nothing exception, but it should be noted as for just how customizable you are by the hardware you wear and carry. Every class seems to have it's own sets of armor you will pick up and/or buy along the way as you play, and while a type of equipment may share a look, the array of available gear is vast for each class, requiring the devs to put a lot of time and effort to make this all come together. This game was made to show off your character and all the gear they are using, and that effort shows. I have to give them a lot of credit here.
But there is one more class of character who has to impress to make this game really look good, and that's the creatures you face. They do not disappoint. Monsters are designed to be anywhere from threatening wildlife to deamonic threats from Hell and the cabals who worship them. You will see them all and how the artists let loose with them... it looks great from start to finish.
9/10
Sound: Once again, this being a Diablo title, you know you are in for a full cinematic treatment, and your ears are in for the same starting with the full orchestration soundtrack. Rarely will you be without any instruments setting the tone in the background, be they violins playing the a sad tone over the world, deep drums to add to the intensity and anything in between. This game uses these notes to the absolute maximum it can. Still this rarely stands on it's own as anything special since AAA games in general tend to use this tool well these days.
Sound effects also sound great, even as you should fully expect it at this time. From you feet trudging through snow or sand, or splashing in water, to the sounds of the wildlife, to even the roars of enemies and metal clangs and thunks of weapons. This game does it's soundscape right.
But there is one place where Diablo has always stood out for it's time, and that's the voice acting. Once again, the tradition continues today with this entry. as every character, however small their part is fully voiced and brought their A game to the performance... and the game absolutely shines for it! But the real amazing point to this is your own character. Like your looks, this game takes a first for the franchise and lets you customize how you sound, requiring several voice actors to play your roll, and every one of them I have heard so far sounded perfect for the mood of the game. I really do have to give these people props for making this work so well.
9/10
Gameplay:
If you have played Diablo games in the past, you have an idea of what to expect from this one as well. You will play from an isometric view, guiding your character through your adventure, either clicking around to move and interact with a mouse or more console-like controls of a controller... the game was built to support either easily so it will be up to you to decide how you want to play.
Once you are moving around you will follow quests provided by other characters to reach new dungeons and progress the story through more and more dangerous monsters, deamons, and humans in thrall of them as you hack and slash your way through the game, but also like previous games in the franchise, how it plays will be decided by you as much as the (admittedly static) quests before you.
Your first choice of importance will be your class, as there are five of them here: barbarian, rouge, druid, sorcerer, and necromancer. Each class behaves differently. For example the barbarian is generally a melee fighter who specializes in berserker abilities and a vast variety of melee weapons, where as the necromances (my personal favorite) is more of a summoner class, relying on things more like curses to weaken the throngs of enemies while guiding your own throng of undead skeletons to mow them down. Of course picking a class wont limit you to just one type of play, but these are the most obvious choices. There are plenty of resources online if you wish to find better or more interesting builds in any class in this game.
And you will build up your choices as you play. Fighting monsters and completing quests will earn you experience that will ultimately grant you higher levels, giving you better stats as well a skill point for each of the first 50 levels. These points then can be spent on the skill tree of your class to choose new skills or enhance ones you have (either strengthening or adding new affects you find pleasing). To this end you will form one half of your build. The other half is your gear. Diablo 4, like the rest of it's series, focusses here as gear you find and buy will have both stats to line up with yours as well as bonus effects you can take advantage of, further pushing your character along.
This may not sound like a lot, but this building process allows for a ton of varied builds which enriches the basic play loop that will sustain your entire adventure... but a big feature of the series has always been that you don't have to play alone. Rather if you choose, you can share the adventure with your friends. Diablo 3 leaned into this by doing away with the single player mode and turning the game into an online-only affair, encouraging you to either play with friends, in an open game for others to join, or even jump into random games with others. Diablo 4 takes this to the next step and places the game in an open-world affair.
Yes, you can always invite other players to your game, but playing alone doesn't mean you play alone. You are playing on a server with other players also running around at all times and from all platforms who, while you are not in a dungeon (which is instanced for you and your party) can come right in and join in the fun organically. In fact, this game leans into this with world events like giant monsters that will appear offering a challenge for everyone on the server to get together and face off with it.
It all comes together for a fun and smooth time for the most part if one that, when you look at the raw gameplay, is very simple with little to think about while you play. If you like the vibe, you will enjoy yourse;f. If you are happy to mash your way along and then focus on lore you find on the way (like myself), that also makes for a great time, but I do have one complaint I need to bring up that these battles force front and center: the zoom.
Maybe it's because I played a necromancer, but I could feel the limits of my screen. Well before I would see an enemy, my hoard would go charging off screen to kill whatever monster was there, leaving me to chase after them, not the other way around... and I could never shake the feeling that if a flick of the mouse wheel would let me zoom out just that little bit, I would have a better grip to control the game rather then just respond. But even as the game denied me that option, it was clearly possible as these world bosses in particular do just this to enforce just how big and dangerous compared to the players the monster you are about to face off with is. It's not that the game COULDN'T do it, it just was built not to... likely to make that zoom more unique and appear more impressive. I would honestly have sacrificed that feel in one moment for a much better experience with one of your 5 classes you can play as.
7/10
Bugs: While I can't say the game ran flawlessly, it did run really well. Still I had an occasional bug I do have to report... most of them server related, but one was definitely on my end.
- Grey Screen of Death: This happened exactly once, but one time trying to start the game, it refused to start at all. Rather I got stuck at a grey screen with nothing on it until I forced the game to shut down and restarted. The next time started perfectly however.
- Pauses when entering the map: I am pretty sure this is server related, but every once in a while when I first entered a new map, the game would freeze for a few seconds. This wasn't a stutter... it was literally an all out freeze until the game server replied to let me continue. It was rare, and the first time it left me concerned the game was breaking, but it always came back.
- Rubber Banding: Much like the pauses above, this game does occasionally have rubber banding issues if the servers are having a bad night. They wont stop you from playing, but your connection will definitely influence how good your game is.
Digital Rights Management: Unfortunately this being a game as a service title, it is very locked down. You will need the launcher you bought the game in, a batlte.net account to link to it, as well as a constant internet connection to play this game. If any of this is missing, you are shit out of luck.
Score: I think we can also say Diablo 4 is not really a traditional hack & slash anymore as it leans into the world of MMO-like gameplay more then the franchise ever has, never truly even letting you play alone. If this bothers you, you might consider this the time for you to check out and walk away from the franchise. However, if you don't care or even like the idea of being always online meaning you will always see others in the world in this way, you have a very solid game in front of you with a solid if simple main plot to back it. And if you are like me, then that simplicity won't honestly matter as the lore and world-building it leaves room for (and let's be honest, Blizzard has always done that well with this franchise) is exceptional. At least until you reach the end credits, you will have a lot to love here.
The only real gripe I can bring about here is the price... $70 is way too much for this game, so regardless of how you think you will or will not like it, wait for a sale before you pick it up.
8/10
System Requirements:
- Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8350
- 8 GB RAM
- NVidia Geforce GTX 660, AMD Radeon R9 280, or Intel Arc A380
- 90 GB hard drive space
- Windows 10 version 1909 (64-bit only)
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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