Diablo IV Review (PC)

Diablo IV is the latest iteration of the popular series by Blizzard, a subsidiary of Activision. This game itself is an ARPG and MMORPG hybrid, which has all game players playing together on the same server. The game takes place after the events of Diablo III and focuses on the war between the angel Inarius and the demon, Lilith - both of whom spawned the human race from a brief romantic (?) union - and who both disagree as to what the destiny of humans should be. The player character is an adventurer who, unless they plan on revealing some secret backstory, is no one of note, nor does the focus of the story seem on them, which is somewhat of a narrative departure from the previous games. The graphics of the game are all impressive, however, so let's take a look at what the game does right and wrong.

First of all, the graphics are impressive and built for the latest generation of players. It's a slight step above Diablo 2: Resurrected, which was a remake of Diablo 2, with the latter remaining the best game in the series thus far (in my opinion). Diablo 2: Resurrected, a.k.a. D2r, has a cool zoom feature, which highlights the attention to detail regarding both the character models and the environment. Diablo IV implemented the same feature, though the zoom doesn't go as far back as I would like. Regardless, the graphics are highlighted significantly throughout the story, with most cutscenes using in-game models rather than purely-cinematic vignettes. The animations are visually pleasing and so are the death animations of enemies, with some good gore to be had all around. It's funny because, for some reason, they changed certain character models to remove nudity, which seems like a strange thing to be concerned about when violence is so emphasized. Perhaps it's fear of retaliation from pseudo-feminists, who have been responsible for the videogame industry making character models uglier, just like in Diablo 2: Resurrected, which was one of the worst qualities of the game. The argument from these people is that beauty is not realistic, but that is a disingenuous argument. Beautiful people exist, so it's well within the realm of realism for them to exist in fiction. Furthermore, no one wants to look at ugly people in media and videogames - I don't think even ugly people do. In actuality, what they're saying is, "We don't want beautiful, thin people to be emphasized because it damages our already low self-esteem." What did work, however, was a return to the dark, gritty, depressing atmosphere of Diablo 2, instead of the bright, almost cartoonish atmosphere of Diablo III. So, overall, the graphics were handled quite well, though sadly that is one of the highlights at the moment.

Regarding gameplay, it has been fairly uninspiring overall. The combat mostly appeals quite well to the casual player, as there are the standard point-and-click attacks and ability activations using number keys - the latter of which was initially made popular in Diablo III - which are easy to understand and relatively fun to use. There isn't always synergy between abilities, however, so the playstyle is limited for more hardcore players who want variety. The skill tree is not bad, however, and - though some people did not like it - I found it to be fun to experiment with. The biggest issue is that, as I said, if you are looking to do well in endgame content or maximize your stats, it still needs a fair bit of work and optimization. So, now that we have discussed how the players operate, how does the game world compare?

The game world honestly seems empty compared to its predecessors, with less variety in location and uniqueness of content. It took me a while to realize exactly why that was, and it occurred to me that there's a dearth of places to explore in each particular area. Everything is spaced out much too far, whether it is enemies or dungeons, and both - minus a few notable exceptions, like The Sanguine Chapel - are fairly generic and unforgettable. Another aspect - no pun intended - is the "aspect system", which you unlock by completing various cookie-cutter dungeons. A good idea, in theory, but it takes the mystery out of each location when you see which aspect is unlocked for each one. You can still extract aspects from legendary items, but at a varied percentage, so it seems redundant to include both (In Diablo III you just did it once and could mix-and-match aspects, which was a better system. They also don't have a static completion tracker on the map either, as far as I can tell, as the green checkmark over the dungeon entrance disappears after one "logs out" or disconnects, both of which are very real possibilities.

The reason that the dungeons are so generic is for a few reasons. First, although I give them credit for trying new things, those things often are tedious. For example, side quests mostly seem like busy work, even for an MMO hybrid - i.e., fetch the “ghoul hearts” or “collect animus from enemies” - which can get old quickly. Sometimes we want to just clear a dungeon without having some factory-churned set of objectives to complete. I’m also torn about the mandatory boss at the end of each dungeon, because, although it can sometimes be interesting, the fact that there’s always a dungeon boss or “set” enemies makes it a little too predictable to play through. The bosses themselves don't have a lot of variety either, but I will say that the types of enemies you do encounter are pretty interesting. Regardless, I don’t play Diablo to go through the monotony of "fetch" quests and completing "dailies". I want unique and interesting quests that, although they may be randomized, are not indistinguishable across the entire game’s acts. That is, I feel like each dungeon is the same, regardless of what region I'm in in the game world.

I think that's the reason I still prefer Diablo 2 so much - the dungeons are labyrinthine, with multiple levels and exits to different locations. One of the issues of the “open world” concept in Diablo IV is that every dungeon has a single entrance and exit, and surprisingly there is only a single “floor” to clear. But, as of right now, it's all too linear and I don’t ever feel like I’m truly exploring or doing anything interesting. I hope they redesign this, but I don’t think it’s possible due to time and costs; they’d essentially have to revamp the entire game if they wanted to accomplish a greater sense of immersion.

One other thing that irked me was the loot drop frequency. Unlike in most games, rare (yellow, in this case) loot doesn't drop more frequently than basic magic (blue) and common (white) loot. Legendaries even drop more than magic and common loot, which is astounding. The unbalanced drops were so prevalent, and the stash space so sparse (only four tabs for inventory) that I stopped picking up most items altogether. It was too much of a pain to teleport back and forth with loot anyway because the servers have been so unstable, and if you get kicked out you have to redo the same boring dungeon. Now, Diablo 2 and Diablo III both had set items and uniques too, which were very rare to drop but that made it much more exciting. Diablo IV doesn't have set pieces but they do have unique items, though they are legendaries with a different color. Collecting cool loot is one of the staples of these games, so if one cannot even do that, it hurts overall longevity.

Regarding the story, I started enjoying it right at the beginning, but, unfortunately, there’s a massive slog shortly after the first act of the game is finished. It only started to get interesting again near the end of the game, when you’re with the Cathedral marching into Hell. However, at that point, the experience was mostly over. Diablo and Diablo 2 had enough mystery about them to make the story and exploration exciting, but I’ll admit that part of the problem with making multiple sequels is that ideas run out and, since we’ve seen most of it before, there isn’t that same “wow” factor. There were some ridiculous elements to the story, which I am going to spoil now, for anyone that cares. For example, the idea that Inarius randomly gets backstabbed by Lilith doesn’t fit his character. He was supposed to be "filled with hatred" so he wouldn’t have stopped fighting until Lilith was dead. The Donan scene with the "wall thing" was pretty ridiculous as well. Then, in the epilogue, the girl running off with the soulstone - which is a historically bad call - was just pushing the plot forward lazily; it didn’t make sense. The cinematics were all cool, and I did enjoy certain aspects of the story, but it definitely felt long and not necessarily in a good way. Honestly, the reason that Diablo and Diablo 2 were more interesting in many ways was that they didn’t explain every single thing or constantly show us the enemies machinating in the cutscenes; there’s something to be said about a little mystery and subtlety. I still remember that characters like Baal were only teased briefly in cinematics, so by the time you got to the Worldstone chamber you didn't know what to expect. I did like Diablo IV's side missions to some degree, as they often seemed to capture the lore and introduced new characters without being too repetitive or boring (though not always).

As an addendum to the story commentary, I noticed there were some woke elements in the game. Not as egregious as some games have gotten, but it’s there, such as the girl being a prodigy for no explicable reason, comparable to two Horadric mages that have been studying their entire lives. There's a lot of subtle - and sometimes not-so-subtle - misandry in these games, but that's partially due to the times we [unfortunately] live in, where characters' racial and/or gender qualities are more important than making them nuanced or interesting. However, as I said, Diablo IV isn't too insufferable about it, and I didn't see much racial tokenism either. I also think they [thankfully] avoided pushing LGBT content in this particular game because it's popular in China, and Blizzard has always had to maintain a moral relationship with them. I’m finding the anti-Christian trope to be a little stale too - it’s in so many games and TV shows now, and Diablo IV is no exception. We get it - you don’t like Christians. At least make it nuanced and interesting, maybe by showing some motivations as to why the characters were conflicted with their roles or faith, perhaps thinking they are doing the right thing but ultimately losing their way. But no, it was a very ham-fisted, one-dimensional “I’m righteous and you aren’t, hahaha.” The character of Vigo was an exception, however, as he was one of the few characters with depth; Lorath and Donan were probably the only other interesting characters besides him.

To extrapolate more on the endgame content, once you beat the game, you are transported back into the starting town and you can do several different activities, including Tree of Whispers quests (which are essentially bounties/dailies that you can complete and turn in for a reward), Capstone Dungeons (additional story dungeons), "Helltide" Events (randomized events on the world map), and Nightmare Dungeons (dungeons with extra difficulty). I normally don't like that you can't repeat the game in higher difficulties, but in this case, I don't mind, due to the story feeling so long. There is also PvP (player vs. player) content available, and you can change the difficulty/"World Tier" for PvE (player vs. environment) as well, though the latter is only available after you beat the game with a character for the first time. This is probably why it seemed too easy to play through, as the normal difficulty option was quite easy; the difficulty should either be balanced to be more difficult or at least give people the option.

The bottom line: Though I can tell that there was a good amount of thought and creativity put into this game, it still seems unfinished at its core, which is not a good sign from a AAA company like Blizzard. The game world is generic and sparsely generated, with cookie-cutter dungeons and a limited variety of enemies, as well as a mediocre combat system. The story was pretty good but there was a lot of filler between acts, and there were also some ridiculous elements to the narrative as well. The endgame content is one of the highlights until the expansion comes out, the latter of which will hopefully address some of the aforementioned problems the game has. Despite being a hybrid ARPG and MMORPG, there is little functionality for players who are interested in cooperating, which also needs to change. In essence, as of right now, the game is not great, but it's not bad either. It's certainly not worth the price I and others paid for it, standard edition or otherwise. However, Blizzard seems to be implementing patches that address changes already, so there is, perhaps, hope.

Verdict: 6/10