Diablo IV Review – When the original Diablo first came out back in 1997 (I still remember holding the CD and putting it into my PC’s CD-ROM), it was one of the best games of all time in my list. I can even still remember the Sanctuary’s soundtrack, the voice of Deckard Cain saying “Stay a while and listen”, the addictive looting system, the vibe of the game, the fun gameplay, and so on. Diablo II still held all these dearly, with Diablo III improving everything that the games had to offer before.
But I wasn’t really a fan of Diablo III’s colour palette and tone, which I found to be a bit too colourful in a way. It still was a great game for sure and I’d enjoyed trying different classes to play and had different kinds of fun replaying the campaign all over again.
Years have gone by (a decade, to be exact) and Diablo fans finally get what they want: Diablo IV. With all the hype surrounding the game as it’s being developed, we’ve got a taste of what the game has to offer through watching gameplay videos, trailers, and more importantly, a Diablo IV public beta where everyone could give the game try and saw what the hype was all about. Despite of the server issues due to millions of gamers trying to log in, I personally think it was a complete success. Everyone I knew who played the beta, enjoyed it and pre-ordered the game afterwards.
After playing the early review build, Diablo IV definitely fulfils all the hype and has become the Diablo sequel that we all want it to be: darker, sinister, bigger, and massive.
Diablo IV Review – Character Creation
There are five classes upon the launch of Diablo IV though I believe there will be more coming in the future through updates (whether it’ll be free or through paid Battle Pass, I’m not sure yet). The classes are Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue, and Sorceress. I’ve tried them all during the early access/open beta and suffice to say, every class offers a different experience to play Diablo IV. And there are different builds and playstyle you can choose as well within each class, so there is plenty of replayability here.
During your character creation, you can modify things like your character’s hair style, facial hair, tattoo, etc. It’s not fully customisable like in Cyberpunk 2077 though and every class has different facial and body presets that you can’t change. For example, what you see on the screenshot above is a Female Necromancer and you can’t have this exact same character model and look in other classes. I guess it’s good to keep characters unique to their classes’ vibe.
Your character will appear throughout the in-game cutscenes and will also have his/her looks changed as you equip different gears.
Diablo IV has a Transmog feature though thanks to the Wardrobe feature in Diablo IV. You can mix and match your armour components assuming you have salvaged the component before through a Blacksmith. This way, if you like how an armour or boots look, you can keep those appearances even though you are actually wearing newer, different sets of armour and boots. You can also change the colour palette of every armour component, which is very nice. And yes, you can also choose not to display your helmet.
Diablo IV Review – Design, Storyline, Graphics, Gameplay Experience
Diablo IV story is more sinister than ever before and after you play the introduction (which is an awesome start to set the game tone), you’ll be hungry for more. The main story brings you, a wanderer, to stop Lilith – the daughter of Hatred, whose father you slain back in Diablo II. The cinematic scene of Lilith resurrection was definitely one of the best Blizzard’s creative team has to offer and throughout the game, you’ll encounter Lilith every now and then through visions and all the destruction she left behind.
As explained before, I really like the colour palette and tone of Diablo IV. It’s gory, dark, evil, macabre, and really has the feel of a Diablo world: desperate people trying to survive in their own ways, evil rituals being performed, demons feeding on human souls, and more. These can be seen throughout the environment you pass while playing, or through side quests. Sure, there are those quests with mundane tasks like killing monsters to get X amount of Y, but there are lots of quests with their own mini storyline. In one quest, you’ll be helping a priest to exorcise a demon infesting a child’s body. In another, you’ll be sent to investigate a disappearance of a person and it usually ends up with a surprising twist.
These quests are many and they might pop up in towns that you’ve been through before as you level up and progress through the story. Obviously, they are all optional but help you in levelling up your character and getting more money where you can upgrade your equipment or re-allocate your skills. They are also there to bring you more immersion into the world created by the developers as if you really are in it.
You’ll also encounter events happening in the area as you explore but I find that there are more or less the same (i.e they don’t change in different areas), but they are good to get you some experience, gems, and murmuring obols (that you can swap for random items).
Diablo IV looks modern, a real feast on the eyes, and the animation feels smooth even when there are lots of things going on in a screen. You’ll also be exploring different areas like the Kehjistan’s dessert, the icy mountainous Fractured Peaks, and many more.
The story is massive too and I barely scratch the surface of the story even when I’ve reached level 34 with my Necromancer. Lots of events, side quests, and lingering enemies that may distract you from the main story but it’s what make Diablo fun: its combat system, its character progression, its random things you get where you have to make decisions on, and its satisfying feel when you can decimate lots of enemies with ease.
Boss battles can be challenging which may force you to either level up your character more, or change your character build for the better. I got stuck with a boss battle while playing (died 5 times in a row) and while my quick response was to say “Necromancer Minions build sucks at boss battles”, I realised that I was only a couple of levels shy away from getting my Golem. After completing some side quests and got my Golem, I finally realised that this was doable and could move forward.
Diablo IV Review – Loot System and Character Build
The one thing people like about Diablo is its loot system. As far as I remember, the original Diablo was the first game that invented the loot system that loved by many and shaped many modern games up until today like the Borderland series, Path of Exile, and many more. You’ll find plenty of weapons, armour components, and accessories in Diablo IV, with a variety of random stats and attributes, plus legendary items that normally has a unique skill associated with your class.
For example in the screenshot below, I found a legendary gauntlet that boosts my army of Skeletons’ damage up to 26% so that’s not bad at all.
Getting these unique and legendary items encourage (and sometimes force, in a good way) you to try out different build. If you play as a Necromancer for example, you may have started building your character without minions. But as you get items that actually gear you towards having minions, you may want to experiment and see how it turns up by reallocating your skill points to different paths. You can also put gems in an equipment socket to further give you certain unique attributes.
And that’s the beauty of Diablo IV. There are lots of skills and build you can focus on (though the game only encourages you to have up to 6 active skills at a time – to avoid making the battle too complicated) and you can reallocate the skill points to something else when it doesn’t suit your playstyle. There’s a refund cost through in-game money to reallocate your skills and it’s getting pricier as you reallocate more, but so far it’s been a good balance between trying stuff carefully (as it costs something) without being too expensive that you can’t do it anymore.
Diablo IV Review – The other things
Diablo IV is actually pretty massive. I haven’t even talked about the PvP, its Shop system (which wasn’t available during the early review build), the world bosses that spawn during specific days and time where you have to collaborate with many other players to kill them, dungeons where you can get Legendary Aspect to imbue onto your equipment, Paragon System, and more.
Suffice to say that there are plenty of things to do in Diablo IV and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
Diablo IV Review Conclusion
I unfortunately couldn’t complete Diablo IV storyline so I can’t comment on how good or bad it is (including how the endgame is). So far, it’s quite promising but you may have to check other reviews for this (I had to review other gadgets and also Star Wars: Jedi Survivor when I received the early review code, though I somehow managed to play a good amount of hours of it).
Diablo IV is definitely a worthy successor of Diablo III. It goes back to the core of Diablo and what fans really like about the Diablo series (from the first to the third). The developers did mention they actually replayed all the Diablo games to find out what’s good about them and how to incorporate all the great stuff into Diablo IV. From what I see so far, the team did a fantastic job.
Diablo IV is eerie, dark, has a sinister plot, but more importantly, has the loot system, character build and classes, and gameplay that we all love about Diablo.
Disclosure: Diablo IV review code was supplied for reviewing the game about two weeks.
