14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most anticipated games of 2023, Blizzard’s Diablo IV went through two rounds of beta, which most certainly cemented fans’ opinion about the upcoming game. The fourth main installment in the Diablo series changes the direction of the franchise toward a more MMO approach.
Backed by a solid story, Diablo games have always been the pure definition of action RPG genre. However, Diablo IV changes the tune a bit and introduces an open-world aspect that some fans might not be used to.
With five classes to try and level up to 25, the two rounds of beta had plenty of gameplay to offer those who enjoyed the previous Diablo games. Either you tried all five or only had time for just one or two of them, here are some of my impressions after spending a few dozen hours with the Barbarian, Sorceress, Rogue, Druid and Necromancer.
First off, I think that some of the classes that were available in the beta need a bit of tuning. Leveling up the Barbarian and Druid is much harsher than playing Rogue, Sorceress or Necromancer. Out of the five classes. Necromancer seems to be the most powerful and easiest to level up, at least in the beta.
Both Barbarian and Druid are missing the passive skills to regenerate the energy they need to use their abilities, so these classes seem to have a rough start compared to the other two. On top of that, they are missing the specializations that the other three classes are getting within the first 25 levels. They will eventually get their specializations, but after level 25, so there’s no way to tell how powerful they will become.
Despite of that, all five classes are viable and very enjoyable for casual players. You can go through the story, side quests, dungeons and all the other activities in the game without issues. Once you want to min-max your builds and try to get as much as possible from your class while playing on Hardcore mode, you’ll stumble upon the issues that I’ve mentioned.
Ultimately, it’s just a matter of taste, so depending on what kind of playstyle you prefer, there are plenty of options to choose from, as each class has its own different flavor. Not to mention that all five can be specialized in very different skill trees allowing for even more customization if you’re looking for a specific gameplay style.
I would encourage everyone to play whichever class they like the most instead of trying to level up the most powerful class and not enjoying it. As I’ve already said, all five classes are perfectly viable as long as you don’t play on Hardcore mode where you need to min-max to avoid losing your character.
As far as the gear goes, there’s plenty of that too. Just like in games like Path of Exile, you can actually have items that you can build your character around, something that I really like. However, I think the cost of upgrading your gear needs a bit toned down because I was burning through gold like crazy.
It’s true that drop percentage of legendary items was inflated for the beta and I wanted to upgrade all my legendary items as quickly as possible, but the amount required even for one seemed a bit higher than I was expecting.
The piece of the map that everyone was able to explore throughout the beta felt big enough, but after seeing the entire map that will be available in the game, I’m worried that we’ll spend a lot of time moving from one location to another. Diablo IV does feature mounts, but they are only available after a certain level. On the bright side, there are plenty of other activities, apart from main and side-quests, that you can do while moving from one location to another, so there’s not a dull moment.
Many of the dungeons in Diablo IV award players with “aspects,” powerful abilities that sometime change the way a class is played. Aspects are specific to each class, but running dungeons in Diablo IV has been fun regardless. I will say that some dungeons are a bit mediocre with either not enough/too many or bad layout.
The traditional hub from the previous Diablo games is now gone and replaced with big or smaller towns where you can find everything that you need to continue your journey. It’s one of the traits of the more open-world approach, one that I really enjoyed. Another aspect that strongly reminds me of MMOs is the world bosses, very powerful monsters that can only be killed by teams of players.
They don’t really require any group strategy, so as long as you know where to position your character, you will not be in danger of dying. These world bosses usually kill characters in one hit and their attacks can’t be blocked, just dodged. If you die during a world boss fight, you lose 10% of your equipment’s durability.
Dying repeatedly will drastically reduce your effectiveness, which will not only hurt you, but the entire raid too. World boss fights are a DPS races since they must be killed within a certain time. Spending 15 minutes in a fight and not being able to kill a world boss is not fun, but at least it's going to be a good lesson for future fights.
I won’t be spoiling any story tidbits, but I’ll say that Diablo IV seems very dark and some of the scenes in the game are downright brutal. Although I’m not a fan of the Slavic setting, the cutscenes and the voice-acting are, as expected, top-notch.
Conclusion
Diablo IV shapes up to a be a massive success for Blizzard, so if there’s one game that I’d recommend anyone mildly interested in action RPGs, it would be this one. I just hope the server issues won’t be as prevalent as they were during both betas. The Diablo series is back bigger and better than ever.
Preview key was provided by the developer.
