REVIEW: Enjoy a violent and hellish fantasy in DIABLO IV

NOTE: This game was reviewed on PS5.

When dealing with an expansive game like Diablo IV, it can be difficult to fully review it without having weeks and weeks of game time and hundreds of hours of gameplay (which I don’t have time for). Still, it’s clear that Diablo IV is an extremely strong case of knowing how to make a game look and feel amazing in just about every way. While I haven’t personally dived deep into the endgame or hit level 100 on multiple characters, it’s easy to see that the journey to get to the endgame is filled with fun, customization, challenge, and hundreds of hours of top-notch entertainment. order .

The entire review could be summed up in a sentence or two. If you like big action, dark themes and deep customization then play this game. Period. Diablo IV feels like a hybrid of Diablo II and Diablo III in the best possible way. As for the rest of the review, there are three significant aspects to address in a game like this: game cycle, character, building and story.

Diablo IV gameplay is absolutely the best part of the game. I legitimately have a hard time not chasing every single enemy that appears on screen trying to take them down. I have no idea why I have such an incentive to hunt down every single skeleton or giant bat, but every enemy I see, every horde that attacks me, and every uncharted location fills me with intrigue and the will to keep going. Trudging through tough dungeons, challenging side-quests, and surprisingly visceral combat never gets old. I wish there was a way to lighten up the clutter that happens after many, many enemies appear on screen or four players activate all their abilities at once, but it’s small and not terribly problematic.

Almost as good as the gameplay itself, building a character and crafting builds between skills, armor and the ridiculously deep paragon system is a fantastic playground for creating your favorite killing machine you’ve always dreamed of. It can be relatively simple as go all out when it comes to creating the builds you want, but I feel like Diablo IV is stuck in a very classic sense of building a character. Modern games allow and encourage a lot of customization and experimentation, especially as endgame activities approach. However, Diablo IV more or less punishes you for trying to use new equipment, use new builds, and try new approaches to gameplay. It’s not terrible or impossible to experiment with, it just takes time. For example, if a player wanted to switch from a fire-based build instead of a lightning-based build, the player would have to remove skills and upgrades one by one to add new skills or reset the entire skill tree with a cost (which can be quite sizable as players enter the higher levels). It feels so strange when other games encourage you to experiment with your character and Diablo IV actively prevents you from experimenting often.

The last thing to really discuss is the true history of Diablo IV. While a strong and interesting story, I couldn’t help but be detached from the actual story. It’s all too easy for players to completely ignore the story and run around attacking things for hours on end for no reason. This can be a good option to have for sure. However, my character felt more like a bystander and a byproduct of events happening in the world instead of my character actively changing the world. Players can engage and enjoy great cutscenes and interesting side quests that are quite visceral, but I found that the player character too often tries to catch up on the plot instead of being the plot.

One small thing to note, there has been a lot of discussion about how seasons work in Diablo IV. Having to create new characters for the next few seasons and stuff like that has been a hot topic. While that new gameplay model might be frustrating and relatively unique, it in no way mars the core experience of Diablo IV. There are still an insane amount of hours to spare in this game, even if you just enjoy the base game and don’t commit to the seasons starting later this summer.

Diablo IV is honestly exactly what I expected. There are definitely some minor issues and locations that I wish were streamlined or better adapted to the modern gaming mindset. But overall, the game is amazing and an easy recommendation for anyone who loves action games or RPGs. This game is also good enough and built well enough to help new players, I would happily recommend it to anyone who has never tried an RPG or action oriented game, they might just want a friend or some youtube videos to lend them some tips here and there.