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Diablo IV makes killing the legions of Hell feel downright heavenly

2K View2023-06-10

Diablo® IV

8.0

GoreDungeon CrawlerAction RPGActionRPGPoint & ClickOnline Co-OpPvE

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The day that not so long ago seemed like it would never come has finally arrived: Diablo IV is upon us. The latest entry in the series is bigger, prettier, and more online than ever before, but the core of the action RPG formula that made it famous remains intact—pick a class, get gear, and kill countless screaming hordes of hellspawn. While we have some reservations about Blizzard’s plans for ongoing monetization, Diablo IV is a vast, violent, and darkly beautiful world that is easy to get lost in for hours at a time—which is why we decided it deserved two perspectives for TapTap’s official review. Diablo lovers @Ian Boudreau and @Ndi have teamed up to give you a co-op evaluation of Blizzard’s new action-RPG epic.

Ndi: As someone who’s spent hundreds of hours with Diablo II and III, diving into Diablo IV felt like coming home. Fifty years have passed since the events of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, but the world hasn’t gotten any less hellish. The people of Sanctuary are probably sick of all the demons, but I never seem to get tired of fighting mobs of monsters, picking up loot, and transforming my character into the ultimate killing machine.

Ian: Even with all the new systems and always-online shared world format, Diablo IV does feel intensely familiar. There’s just more of everything: This new open-world version of Sanctuary is enormous and packed with activities to complete and little secrets to find. One of my favorite things about it is that no matter how long I had for a session—fifteen minutes or a couple of hours—the game has objectives that fit that time and allowed me to feel like I’d accomplished something. Big story dungeons can take half an hour to explore, while the little cellars dotting the map are a quick in-and-out fight. I never had to go far to find a public event to join, and I got lost for hours following chains of side quests in the outlying towns around Kyovashad.

Ndi: There’s a constant feeling of progress that made Diablo IV hard to put down, even when I had places to be or was running low on sleep. It’s a Diablo game, so I was constantly rewarded with shiny new loot, but it also felt like progress wasn’t locked to my character’s level. Diablo IV has five classes—Barbarian, Sorcerer, Necromancer, Druid, and Rogue—and each one can be customized with a complex skill tree. I chose to play as a Sorcerer, dividing my skill points between Fire and Ice spells. After a while, I realized that I’d seriously underrated Lightning spells, so I spent a little gold and gave my character a brand new set of abilities. Re-speccing your character is incredibly easy, and that made me feel like I could experiment with my character and try out a new build at any time.

Ian: I did a lot of respeccing during my time as a Druid, which offered me multiple skill paths to pursue. I could focus on my elemental storm skills that summoned lightning and tornadoes, but I also had access to earth skills that created deadly rock spikes and protective armor, as well as abilities that allowed me to briefly shift into werewolf or werebear forms. The (lengthy) campaign encouraged this kind of improvisation—I ran into several tough bosses against whom my build simply did not work, and yanking out all my points and reassigning them was what eventually carried me to victory each time.

Ndi: Whether I was summoning hydras or chaining lightning, Diablo IV’s combat felt incredibly intuitive, and that made it easy to jump from one build to the next. I also encountered some challenging boss fights, but running around Sanctuary and fighting random enemies was actually pretty relaxing. The main narrative gets pretty grim—as can some of the sidequests—but even at its darkest, the story never felt overly dour. Diablo IV can be brutal, sure, but I found some of its bleaker scenes to be charmingly over-the-top. When I felt like I needed a break from all the gloominess, I could always focus on lighter things, like upgrading my armor or petting dogs.

Diablo IV gets so many of the big things right that its smaller issues feel all the more jarring. In a game where I was constantly collecting loot, I grew frustrated over inventory management being such a chore. Early on, enemies start dropping gems, which can be used to upgrade armor. In Diablo III and Diablo Immortal, gems had a separate inventory pouch, so it was easy to store them until they were needed. Sadly, there’s no gem bag in Diablo IV, and the gems I collected quickly filled up my inventory slots. I frequently found myself warping back to town so that I could toss gems in my stash and free up valuable inventory space. At one point, I encountered a bug that prevented me from removing items from my stash, which meant my gems were basically useless once they were stored. I was able to fix the problem by purchasing additional inventory slots, but the whole thing felt like an unnecessary headache.

Ian: I’m also deeply skeptical of the always-online requirement, at least for the campaign. As usual, the story casts the character as a singular savior, a chosen person whose special connection to Lilith makes them uniquely empowered to track her down and confront her. That was undercut every time I emerged from a portal in town into a crowd of similarly empowered heroes, and for what? While it’s certainly fun to jump into the occasional public event during the campaign, or enlist help to clear out strongholds, the massively multiplayer component adds next to nothing to the Diablo IV experience prior to the endgame.

Ndi: There were more than a few times when I tried to attack a creature, only to realize it was a druid in werewolf or bear form. I also enjoyed teaming up with total strangers to complete events, but I agree that the other players were mostly a distraction. Sometimes, I’d be in the middle of a cool sidequest and spot another player that was clearly working on the same quest. It’s definitely an immersion breaker! Thankfully, I didn’t encounter many server issues, but I did get booted from the Black Asylum mid-quest when my internet connection died briefly, which meant I had to start the whole thing over. It’s not a major issue, but the online requirement didn’t add much to my experience, and it’s hard to understand why it’s there. To tempt players into buying armor cosmetics, maybe?

Ian: I’m sure that’s a factor! On the subject of looks, though, it must be said that Diablo IV is a gorgeous game. The bright colors and extreme angles of Diablo III have given way for a much grittier and realistic look, and Blizzard’s artists have lavished the world of Sanctuary with nightmarish detail. Grass whips in the wind over the marshes of the Westering Lowlands, and I loved the trails my wolves and I made in the deep snow covering Sarkova Pass.

Ndi: Plenty of games have massive maps, but Diablo IV’s open world feels lovingly handcrafted, with stunning environments that tell a story through visuals alone. My imagination ran wild when I was exploring the flesh-covered forests of the Blood Vale, and I spent an absurd amount of time admiring every painting in the Hall of Ascension. I’m sure endgame will see me revisiting the same locations frequently, but I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of that scenery!

Ian: Each piece of armor, each weapon, each trinket I picked up was exquisitely crafted—and by handing these over to a blacksmith for salvage, I could keep any look I picked up as a transmog to apply at my wardrobe. Visually, Diablo IV is a feast...although who’s feasting on what is always an open question.

Ndi: At this point, I feel like I’ve just started to scratch the surface of what Diablo IV has to offer. There have been a few bumps in the road, and I have a couple of misgivings, but overall, it’s a seriously impressive sequel. I’m sure that this is only the beginning of a long, thrilling Diablo journey. I can’t wait to experience more of the game in the weeks and months to come.

SCORE: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Diablo. This probably goes without saying, but if you’re a fan of other Diablo games, you’ll almost certainly love this one too. Diablo IV has everything that made previous titles in the series great, like smooth ARPG combat and mountains of loot, but even though it delivers more of the same, it doesn’t feel like a retread. The sprawling open world is a game changer, and powering up your character feels better than ever. It’s a great experience for longtime fans, but it’s also newcomer-friendly. If you’ve never played a Diablo game before, this is a fantastic place to start.

• The art of Frank Frazetta. Diablo IV takes inspiration from many sources, but one clear influence is Frank Frazetta, the legendary fantasy artist. Over the course of his career, Frazetta painted everything from heavy metal album covers to movie posters, and you can definitely see his legacy when looking at Diablo’s demonic creatures and otherworldly landscapes.

• Dopamine. Whether you’re opening a gleaming treasure chest, unveiling a new section of the map, or getting a temporary ability from a shrine, Diablo IV is always doing something that scratches the reward center in your brain. Even the sound effects are uniquely satisfying. It’s hard to top the feeling you get when you take down a tough enemy and can hear the loot as it rains down on the ground.

• Games you can play forever. Okay, forever might be an exaggeration, but if Diablo IV gets its hooks in you, it should keep you busy for a very long time. Diablo is known for its endgame content, but even the main campaign is staggeringly long. Both of us were around level 30 by the time we reached the end of just the first act, and the game has six acts in total plus a prologue and epilogue. With two expansions in the works, it doesn’t seem like Diablo IV will run out of content anytime soon!

💬 Will you be fighting the forces of hell in Diablo IV? Let us know in the comments!