Diablo 4 Review – Mom Knows Best

Diablo 4 Review - Mom Knows Best

Diablo IV: A Devilishly Good Time!

With Diablo 4’s release now here, it’s sometimes difficult to reconcile that Diablo III is over a decade old. Its release was polarizing for a number of reasons, but its evolving formula of action role-playing endured, enjoying a resurgence with its post-launch expansion that carried through years of ongoing seasonal updates. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that each of those years helped inform the design of Diablo IV, a game that confidently delivers gameplay that has been carried forward and refined from both Diablo II and III, while also establishing a strong foundation for the franchise’s future.

A Deep and Engrossing Story

Diablo games have always contained stories for their single-player campaigns, but you’d be forgiven for thinking of past storylines as merely contextualization for the game’s primary focus: dungeon-crawling. That’s where Diablo IV makes one of its most striking changes: It not only takes its story far more seriously, but it tells one that’s far more engrossing than ever before. As a traveling wanderer, you come across a small town of villagers on a snow-capped mountain range looking for some aid. After killing some creatures and returning, you’re welcomed as a hero and given food and shelter, only for the villagers to try to use you in a ritual sacrifice to Lilith, co-creator of Sanctuary and recently resurrected antagonist of this tale, moments later. This encounter links you to Lilith, driving you forward on a quest to stop her plan of amassing an army for her own nefarious purposes.

The Power of Companions

Much of that sounds like standard Diablo fare. There’s a big, bad demon, and you’re the only one who can stop it. But Diablo IV makes intelligent use of Lilith, layering her motivations slowly to the point where you can’t help but consider her side of the argument. She’s not driven solely by the lust for destruction. Instead, she’s grieving, with the place she once created to escape the endless cycle of war between heaven and hell now being used as a staging ground to continue it. She’s an antagonist that has been slighted by those she trusted at every turn, and while her means of exacting justice provide the reason for your entire crusade in the first place, it’s surprising and equally welcome when Diablo IV forces you to slow down and consider the true goal of your struggle.

A Beautifully Macabre World

Each distinct area in Diablo IV is shown off with a great amount of visual detail, with a delightfully macabre style that is befitting of its violent story. It’s not trying to overly correct some of the criticisms laid on Diablo III either, with pops of color used tastefully to highlight areas of hope and kinship that contrast against the broader strokes of dread and fear painting the rest of the landscape. The moment-to-moment action in Diablo IV is one of its strongest traits, which is for the best given how genre-defining the series has been over the years. There’s an argument to be made that Diablo III went too far in the direction of simplification, and that’s exactly where Diablo IV course-corrects in smart ways.

A Flexible Skill System

You’re still limited to a total of six active abilities at a time–four on your hotbar and two on each mouse button for those on PC–but how you construct your build is no longer linear. Instead, each new level lets you invest a point in a branching skill tree, with each of its core nodes branching out further into new abilities and associated passive perks. It’s a system that allows for a lot of flexibility, letting you experiment with focusing on one specific ability as the foundation of your build or dabbling with ways to combine two entirely different paths.

A Deep and Expansive Adventure

Bringing together a ragtag group of companions takes place over Diablo IV’s extensive six acts, some of which you can tackle in different orders. Previous Diablo titles had each act accompanied by a change in locale, but in Diablo IV, it only takes a few moments before you’re given free rein to explore its intimidatingly large, interconnected map. Each distinct area is shown off with a great amount of visual detail, with Diablo IV incorporating a delightfully macabre style that is befitting of its violent story. It’s not trying to overly correct some of the criticisms laid on Diablo III either, with pops of color used tastefully to highlight areas of hope and kinship that contrast against the broader strokes of dread and fear painting the rest of the landscape.

Endless Possibilities and Replayability

Aspects of Power, a new facet of the role-playing formula, allow you to hone your build. These collectible skills can be combined with rare pieces of gear to turn them into custom legendary items, imbued with the exact ability that complements the build you’re constructing. This alleviates some of the headaches associated with grinding out dungeons in the hopes of a particular legendary piece of gear dropping, while also providing a new avenue of options for build construction. Diablo IV is nowhere near complete once you’ve rolled credits on the campaign. World Tiers return to incentivize you to go through everything again with a higher degree of difficulty but also more rewards to reap. The map becomes littered with additional side activities that join regular side quests, dynamic quests, and Strongholds.

Conclusion

Diablo IV, at this time, cannot escape comparison to the past of the franchise it belongs to, but it’s thankfully a game that has been crafted with a strong awareness of what made each one either revered or reviled. It represents a measured approach to combining the many elements from previous entries that worked into a system that feels like the new standard-bearer for action role-playing. Coupled with a new benchmark for storytelling in the franchise, and a solid narrative foundation for any potential new adventures, it’s easy to see Diablo IV as something I’ll regularly check-in on for a long time to come.

Now grab your weapons, rally your companions, and embark on an epic quest in Diablo IV!