Diablo® IV

Great game, but still hate always online requirements!

I came into Diablo IV with a lot of skepticism. Before playing it, I had already put more than 150 hours into Path of Exile 2 because I wanted to give that game a real chance. At the same time, I kept hearing how terrible Diablo supposedly was, how bad Blizzard was, how awful the launch had been, and so on. And to be clear: Blizzard absolutely deserves criticism for some of the things the company has done in the past. I do not support that stuff. But the developers, artists, designers, animators and everyone else actually working on Diablo are still people who clearly put a massive amount of work into this game. And after finally buying Diablo IV on sale, I have to say something I genuinely did not expect: **Diablo IV is one of the best games I have played in a long time.** The biggest thing this game taught me is that I need to stop caring so much about online reviews. Gaming discourse feels like one giant cycle of hype waves and hate waves. A game releases, everyone either calls it the greatest thing ever made or absolute garbage. At some point, you just have to play games yourself and decide whether you enjoy them. And I am very glad I did. For me, almost everything that frustrated me about Path of Exile is simply handled better in Diablo IV. The first thing I love is the cosmetic and transmog system. I can actually find cool-looking armor by simply playing the game. Some of the armor I have earned in-game genuinely looks better to me than things being sold for real money. More importantly, I can change my appearance whenever I want. I can experiment, swap transmogs, change weapons and outfits without being charged five ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ euros every time I want to change the appearance of one item. The paid cosmetics also feel much more reasonably priced to me than what I have experienced elsewhere. That being said, the monetization is still one of my criticisms. Diablo is already a paid game with paid expansions, so having another premium cosmetic store on top does not feel great. I would really like some way to earn premium currency through gameplay, similar to Warframe or Guild Wars. Then we get to what might be my favorite thing about Diablo IV: **I can actually understand my own build.** This sounds ridiculous until you have played Path of Exile. In PoE, I can watch guide after guide and still feel like I understand nothing. There are layers upon layers of mechanics, currencies, affixes, systems and terminology. Sometimes it feels less like playing an ARPG and more like studying for an exam. Diablo IV feels completely different. I can create a character, decide that I want to play a Shadow Warlock, read what the abilities actually do, experiment with them and gradually create my own build. And the crazy thing is: **It actually works.** I do not need a spreadsheet open on my second monitor. I do not need five browser tabs. I do not need someone with 8,000 hours explaining some obscure interaction the game never properly explains. I read the skill. I understand the skill. I use the skill. And the thing the description said would happen actually happens. That is beautiful. Diablo IV is one of the first ARPGs where I have genuinely enjoyed making my own builds without following a guide. I experimented, discovered interactions myself, realized when something was inefficient and slowly created a character that felt like mine. The skill tree is simple enough to understand while still giving me meaningful decisions. If I want Shadow damage, I can build around Shadow damage. If I want summons, I can build around summons. If I want to cast constantly, I can look for resource generation and abilities that support that playstyle. My biggest criticism here is build diversity. Path of Exile absolutely destroys Diablo when it comes to the sheer number of possibilities. Diablo offers different archetypes, but once you commit to a particular build, the gameplay can become repetitive. That is the one area where I wish Diablo IV went much further. If Blizzard kept this exact level of clarity and accessibility but gave every class two or three times as many abilities and interactions, the system would be incredible. Because I do not want Diablo to become as complicated as Path of Exile. I want Diablo's current system, just with more toys. The loot is another massive win for me. Something drops. I pick it up. I look at it. I can immediately understand whether it might be useful. Better damage. Better stats. Interesting effect. Cool legendary power. Done. I can actually be excited when something drops. In Path of Exile, I sometimes get an item or currency drop and genuinely do not know whether I should be excited. Diablo's loot feels much cleaner. The drops feel relevant to my character, inventory management does not constantly feel like homework, and I spend more time killing monsters than trying to understand what entered my inventory. The same applies to crafting and vendors. I walk up to the blacksmith. The game tells me what I can do. I understand it. I upgrade something, salvage something, craft something and move on. The systems are intuitive without feeling meaningless. Gems make sense. Upgrading equipment makes sense. Salvaging makes sense. Changing aspects and improving gear makes sense. The game actually teaches me how to use its systems instead of expecting me to watch a 45-minute YouTube video first. And then there is the world itself. This game scratches the fantasy RPG itch incredibly well. I walk through Sanctuary, discover places, enter dungeons, find events, do side quests, get stronger, find better gear, unlock cosmetics and slowly turn my character into exactly the kind of fantasy character I wanted to play. Sometimes I do not even need a larger objective. I can just put something on my second monitor, run around doing dungeons and side quests and enjoy killing things. And the presentation is fantastic. The story surprised me a lot. I expected to mostly ignore it, but I actually became interested. The cinematics are genuinely incredible and Lilith in particular is a fantastic villain. She has presence, looks incredible, feels dangerous and is not just presented as some generic demon screaming about destroying the world. Her motivations are interesting enough that I actually wanted to understand what she was doing and why. Overall, Diablo IV is basically the ARPG I wanted Path of Exile to be. Path of Exile has far more complexity and significantly deeper build diversity, and I completely understand why some players prefer that. But for me, complexity is not automatically depth. Sometimes complexity is just complexity. Diablo IV gives me enough systems to experiment with while still allowing me to understand what I am doing. I can create my own build. I can understand my gear. I can understand crafting. I can change things whenever I want. I can find cool cosmetics by actually playing. And most importantly: **I spend my time playing the game instead of studying the game.** That is why, for me, Diablo IV is comfortably better than Path of Exile. It is not perfect. The build variety could be much bigger and the monetization could be more player-friendly. But the foundation is so damn good. It is intuitive without being braindead and accessible without feeling completely shallow. Sometimes I just want to enter a dungeon, find some sick armor, make my character stronger, experiment with a build I created myself and absolutely delete some demons. Diablo IV lets me do exactly that. And apparently I almost missed it because the internet told me the game sucked. I am very glad I stopped listening.

I waited years to buy the game, because I am so disappointed in Blizzard, it's fallen so low. However, I gave it a try and I was pleasantly surprised. It's just a new Diablo. I'm not into min-max, PVP, or achievements. I just wanted to play the campaign. The graphics are great. My two biggest complaints are, it is way too easy, and references to old changed or removed mechanics. I can see that many things have changed or been removed but they are still referred to in game making it confusing. I had to continually look things up because I thought I was missing something, only to find it had been changed or removed. Blizzard really needs to clean up this mess and remove all references to these old mechanics and change the campaign to reflect the current state.

12.49$ for the base game not bad, so far having a blast streaming it to my steam deck. Will most likely pick up Lord of Hatred at some point when it goes on a better discount.