Diablo 4 review: The horror’s back, and we couldn’t be happier

erek

erek

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Diablo IV

"So there you have it. There are still, annoyingly, a few unknowns about the live-service parts of the game, and if you’re interested in Diablo 4 but are unsure about its new direction, there’s an easy solution: just wait. Give it some time to see how the community reacts when people start pumping hundreds of hours into this thing. As a plus, you'll be able to skip over any launch issues that crop up, though Blizzard is confident it can handle the load this time around.

But if you love ARPGs and enjoyed the combat of Diablo 3 and the atmosphere of Diablo 2, I think you're going to love this game. It's not as brain-meltingly complicated as a Path of Exile, but it doesn't want to be. This is streamlined, big-budget loot hunting, and I absolutely love it. Ignore the monetization nonsense, vibe out on the demon slaying, and you'll have a great time.

The good​

  • Fantastic art direction that returns the series to its grim roots
  • Entertaining story that kept me interested throughout
  • Polished, punchy, and super-fun combat
  • A giant open world and plenty of endgame content to keep you busy

The bad​

  • You can ignore them, but the game's microtransactions are galling
  • Some unknowns about the future of the shop and the live-service elements of the game
  • Replacing legendary aspects on gear can be tedious
  • Skill trees could be more interesting

The ugly​

  • Me, unwashed, sleep-deprived, and malnourished a week after release
Verdict: If you're a series fan, buy it. If you're skeptical, wait a few weeks or months to see how the unknowns work out in the live game."

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Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/05/diablo-4-review-off-to-a-hell-of-a-good-start/
 
DukenukemX said:
Diablo 3 sucked, and Diablo Immortal was immoral. Gonna sit back and wait for actual reviews to see if this game is worth any amount of my time.
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To be fair, yes D3 sucked. Then it turned into a masterpiece. Everything I have seen from the Betas, stress tests, etc so far has me super excited to dive into D4. I am not a die-hard player, definitely casual Diablo fan, but can't wait.
 
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4saken said:
To be fair, yes D3 sucked. Then it turned into a masterpiece. Everything I have seen from the Betas, stress tests, etc so far has me super excited to dive into D4. I am not a die-hard player, definitely casual Diablo fan, but can't wait.
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I've been told this, but I quit the D3 a month after it was released. There's no PVP, and I think there never was which is a big part of why I played Diablo 2. I'm not interested in farming gear to farm better gear. I farm gear to grief players in PVP. I dodged the bullet that was the auction house where you can sell gear for real life money. The Paladin class wasn't available from the start like it was in Diablo 2, so instead they added it to the game through an expansion and called it the Crusader. Diablo 4 is repeating this because I don't see no Paladin class again so obviously the Paladin or Crusader class will require an expansion. They also want $70 for the game, and I wouldn't pay $60 for it seeing as they definitely have micro-transactions but nobody knows until the game is released. Considering the shit storm that is Diablo Immortal, I'm absolutely going to sit back watch for whatever shit storm Diablo 4 will have, because it's not like Blizzard isn't still owned by.... Activision. I would never spend $60 for a game where some asshole can buy a glowing sword off the in game shop, while I spend hours farming for rusty looking swords, and they can fuck off with that $70 price tag.
 
DukenukemX said:
I've been told this, but I quit the D3 a month after it was released. There's no PVP, and I think there never was which is a big part of why I played Diablo 2. I'm not interested in farming gear to farm better gear. I farm gear to grief players in PVP. I dodged the bullet that was the auction house where you can sell gear for real life money. The Paladin class wasn't available from the start like it was in Diablo 2, so instead they added it to the game through an expansion and called it the Crusader. Diablo 4 is repeating this because I don't see no Paladin class again so obviously the Paladin or Crusader class will require an expansion. They also want $70 for the game, and I wouldn't pay $60 for it seeing as they definitely have micro-transactions but nobody knows until the game is released. Considering the shit storm that is Diablo Immortal, I'm absolutely going to sit back watch for whatever shit storm Diablo 4 will have, because it's not like Blizzard isn't still owned by.... Activision. I would never spend $60 for a game where some asshole can buy a glowing sword off the in game shop, while I spend hours farming for rusty looking swords, and they can fuck off with that $70 price tag.
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Yeah, I have a friend who was really big into D1/D2...eventually D3. Asked if he was gonna grab D4 and he's kind of meh about it. The $70 up front cost and then leaning pretty heavy into micro transactions is off putting to him. PoE is at least f2p.
 
Diablo basically set the set setting for Warez sites where you could download the game for Free back then. There was this site that claimed Diablo was a good game untill Ultima Online came out which was like Diablo on Steroids. The guy was so impressed with Ultima Online he basically forgot about Diablo. I think this is basically the 1st Diablo that is trying to be a MMO to a extent which is something Ultima achieved like 25 years ago. The thing that makes this game it's finally a 3-D game that doesn't suck every other attempt of doing a top down 3-D RPG has just fell flat because of technology limitations. Unless were taking Divinity Original Sin which was a good 3D game or Grimm Dawn.
 
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NightReaver said:
Yeah, I have a friend who was really big into D1/D2...eventually D3. Asked if he was gonna grab D4 and he's kind of meh about it. The $70 up front cost and then leaning pretty heavy into micro transactions is off putting to him. PoE is at least f2p.
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I know a number of people who are big into Blizzard games and their nostalgia blinds them away from the shittiness. I'm not saying D4 is a bad game, because nobody knows. Games not released and without actually playing the entire game, you won't have a good idea how the game is. D4 isn't going anywhere and there's no reason to rush to play the game. Wait for reviews and if it's a shitty game then you dodged a $70 bullet. What is worse is if the game is actually good but then later on Blizzard makes shitty changes and because you have time sunk into the game you're less likely to quit. Like the idiots with OverWatch 2 who are still playing the game despite all the shitty changes done, because if they quit now then all their hard work is gone.
 
If I was so offended by the pay to win auction house in the initial release of D3 that I decided I'd never play the game under any circumstances will not having a clue what happened in the storyline of the previous title be a problem in this one?
 
Verdict: If you're a series fan, buy it. If you're skeptical, wait a few weeks or months to see how the unknowns work out in the live game."
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Wouldn't diablo series fans be the most skeptical?
 
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4saken said:
To be fair, yes D3 sucked. Then it turned into a masterpiece.
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Masterpiece is a bit of a stretch. I’ve been playing D3 since 1.0.3, and have racked up at least 10k hours across all my characters.

What it is is definitely comfortable. But it took probably 6years to get good and only recently with the last few seasons gotten really interesting.

Even then the gameplay loop leaves a lot to be desired. Honestly I can complete each season within 20 hours and be done until the next season. The base gameplay loop stays the same and grinding to play competitive is just not fun or interesting.

But for a few weekends of mindless entertainment every 6 months it scratches that itch. I wouldn’t call that masterpiece level.
4saken said:
Everything I have seen from the Betas, stress tests, etc so far has me super excited to dive into D4. I am not a die-hard player, definitely casual Diablo fan, but can't wait.
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I played 2 betas and the gameplay there fits firmly into “fine”. It’s hard to assess a game by such a small piece.

D3 beta allowed only up to level 12(?, it’s been a while) and SK in A1. Game felt great. It was launched and was the worst slog ever and designed to push people to the RMAH.

I’m not saying d4 will be similar, just saying that you can’t really know how good the game will be until we know how the end-game gameplay loop looks like.
 
DanNeely said:
If I was so offended by the pay to win auction house in the initial release of D3 that I decided I'd never play the game under any circumstances will not having a clue what happened in the storyline of the previous title be a problem in this one?
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That was the best thing in a diablo game ever imo. The playerbase actually got some profit sharing. And no one forced you to use it, so it probably made no difference to how you actually approached the game.
 
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Furious_Styles said:
That was the best thing in a diablo game ever imo. The playerbase actually got some profit sharing. And no one forced you to use it, so it probably made no difference to how you actually approached the game.
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Anytime you put a price on any item in the game it becomes pay to win and therefore a job. WOTLK classic brought in Tokens which you can buy and sell on the auction house for gold, and that didn't sit well with the community. Everyone knows they did it for FrostMourne so people can abuse the system and buy their way to a legendary item. It all has an effect in the game, like some people choose to ignore it like you. The real-money auction was so poorly received that it didn't take long before it was removed. Similar to Bethesda's Creation Club paid mods, it basically fell apart. I imagine it got to the point where the only people playing the game were those farming loot to sell, but then there's nobody there to buy said loot.

When looking back at games like Diablo 2, it seems that Blizzard took the best parts of the game and undermined them, while emphasizing on the worst parts. Diablo 2 is basically a single player game that you can play with others while also offering PVP. Diablo 3 is a multiplayer game that could work as a single player games but isn't allowed "officially" while also offering no PVP. Diablo 4 will have PVP, but will keep the aspect of no single player offline play, while adding micro-transactions. People like me emphasize on skill over time invested, while games like Diablo 3 and probably 4 are games that take advantage of people who have autism that like repeating their actions. This is why I won't be going into Cataclysm after WOTLK, and Diablo 4 is being avoided unless the game turns out to be good. I don't mean Diablo Immortal fan good, but like Dunkey confirms it's good. People who liked Diablo Immortal are stupid.

 
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DukenukemX said:
Anytime you put a price on any item in the game it becomes pay to win and therefore a job.
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See that first sentence is 100% wrong. The game is only pay to win if you want to pay, there's no competition requiring you to have that legendary set item to advance. I never paid any money on the AH, nor did I put in long hours in the game.
 
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There's no point in playing early release or even at launch other than bending over from FOMO. Diablo 2 had trading and item values so a race to get the best of the best at the start of the economy made sense. D3/4 is essentially a single player game. Given Blizz's track record of launching games, its safe to wait for this game to iron out some bugs and apply some patch fixes before purchasing. Like D3, it will lose 50-80% of its new player base within 6 months. I'll be purchasing the game at 50-75% off by Christmas.
 
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SomeGiantIdiot said:
There's no point in playing early release or even at launch other than bending over from FOMO. Diablo 2 had trading and item values so a race to get the best of the best at the start of the economy made sense. D3/4 is essentially a single player game. Given Blizz's track record of launching games, its safe to wait for this game to iron out some bugs and apply some patch fixes before purchasing. Like D3, it will lose 50-80% of its new player base within 6 months. I'll be purchasing the game at 50-75% off by Christmas.
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It's a single player game so why should I wait? They've had a closed beta and 2 open betas. It seems pretty dang stable to me compared to the crap that has been released the last few years. And you can say that last part about pretty much any game after 6 months. Hech they were selling CP 2044 for $10 a couple months after release, of course it had major issues is why. :D
 
Bowman15 said:
It's a single player game so why should I wait? They've had a closed beta and 2 open betas. It seems pretty dang stable to me compared to the crap that has been released the last few years. And you can say that last part about pretty much any game after 6 months. Hech they were selling CP 2044 for $10 a couple months after release, of course it had major issues is why. :D
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"-why should I wait?" Its $100 for early access and $70 for regular. The game has no deadline or a race-to-the-finish mechanism. My issue like many sane people has always been "value/money/cost" which I have already stated.
 
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SomeGiantIdiot said:
"-why should I wait?" Its $100 for early access and $70 for regular. The game has no deadline or a race-to-the-finish mechanism. My issue like many sane people has always been "value/money/cost" which I have already stated.
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I get hundreds+ of hours out of value for that $70. Too each their own is my point. Waiting 6 months to save a few bucks (which I'm all for) for something that I can enjoy now is worth it to me. For no race to the finish that means I can take my time and not have to deal with MP bullshit. Especially as new seasons/content crop up. I only ever payed early for a day 1 game one other time in my life. You do you but to infer those that don't want to wait are not of right mind is obtuse. They are not releasing some AAA beta crap.
 
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Furious_Styles said:
See that first sentence is 100% wrong. The game is only pay to win if you want to pay, there's no competition requiring you to have that legendary set item to advance. I never paid any money on the AH, nor did I put in long hours in the game.
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If you're playing a game and can't have the best gear in the game then why are you playing the game? I know you guys love your late game capitalism but it doesn't need to be incorporated into video games. The fact it was removed from D3 shows that you're wrong as it had a massive effect on the game. Enough that Diablo 3 has a user score of 4.2 to this day. You don't wanna know the user score for Diablo Immortal. The problem with Diablo 4 is there's gonna be a gotcha, we just don't know where. I've played enough Activision games to know where Diablo 4 is going.
 
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I had a great time in all 3 of the "betas" so I did actually preorder a game for once. I am looking forward to playing and know I will get my money out of the game so not too many worries here.
 
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I want it but now with summer starting I think i am gonna wait out at least until fall/ starts getting cold out. I understand summer game releases, i just hate it haha.
 
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I few of my friends have pre-ordered the game but I've never been much of a fan of diablo (or action rpg in general) I might get it when they release the xpac in 2-3 years ... or maybe it'll be sooner if the game has awesome reviews.
 
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DukenukemX said:
If you're playing a game and can't have the best gear in the game then why are you playing the game? I know you guys love your late game capitalism but it doesn't need to be incorporated into video games. The fact it was removed from D3 shows that you're wrong as it had a massive effect on the game. Enough that Diablo 3 has a user score of 4.2 to this day. You don't wanna know the user score for Diablo Immortal. The problem with Diablo 4 is there's gonna be a gotcha, we just don't know where. I've played enough Activision games to know where Diablo 4 is going.
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Diablo Immortal is a pay to win game. Diablo 4 is not. Show me where they stated that? We get it, you hate Diablo games.
 
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DukenukemX said:
If you're playing a game and can't have the best gear in the game then why are you playing the game? I know you guys love your late game capitalism but it doesn't need to be incorporated into video games. The fact it was removed from D3 shows that you're wrong as it had a massive effect on the game. Enough that Diablo 3 has a user score of 4.2 to this day. You don't wanna know the user score for Diablo Immortal. The problem with Diablo 4 is there's gonna be a gotcha, we just don't know where. I've played enough Activision games to know where Diablo 4 is going.
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I don't know because maybe I'm having fun with friends? And no, I don't love late game capitalism, I just enjoyed selling crap I didn't need and getting some real money for it and not BS in-game currency.
 
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Diablo.jpg

I've played all of them to completion. I preordered so I could just play when it's available - my connection has been crap lately, so 83GB will need a few "overnights" to finish.
 
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RagingSamster said:
I preordered so I could just play when it's available - my connection has been crap lately, so 83GB will need a few "overnights" to finish.
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If you did the server slam, the latest update claims to be 84GB or so, but it only took me a few minutes to download, so they are probably reusing most of what you've already got.
 
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Bowman15 said:
Diablo Immortal is a pay to win game. Diablo 4 is not. Show me where they stated that? We get it, you hate Diablo games.
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Games not out yet, so we don't know. Also Blizzard doesn't consider Immortal as a pay to win game either.
 
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DukenukemX said:
Games not out yet, so we don't know. Also Blizzard doesn't consider Immortal as a pay to win game either.
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Don't know what?

Immortal you hit a wall and without spending money you can't get certain assets or progress without grinding for thousands of hours for incremental gains. D4 all the assets are included in the base game and can be farmed without the pay to win. D4 is a different beast while immortal is a mobile time waster for the most part than can be played on pc. Since you don't like or play those games your opinions don't hold merit.
 
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Legendary Gamer said:
The preload took a while with the ultra textures, I guess I'm lucky to live in the armpit of the midwest and have some pretty fast internet.
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On my mini PC with a QLC SSD[1] it took a long time to install the non-ultra features.

[1]I didn't know that's what I had until the server slam, when the computer became near-unresponsive, and I checked task manager, only to see that the drive was at 100% utilization and 50MB/s sequential write. Painful.
 
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Nothing like downloading the update last night, logging in now, and getting another update. Fortunately that one only took a minute or two.
 
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