If the cutscenes in Diablo 4 feel directly informed by what Blizzard did with Starcraft 2, the density of the open world map comes across as descended from World of Warcraft in much the same way. Since difficulty scales with your level, there’s no risk of wandering where you shouldn’t and there is a staggering amount to discover across the breadth of Sanctuary. Diablo 4 begins in the snowy Fractured Peaks, but it's only one of five major regions you'll trawl over the course of the campaign. Right from the get-go, you can wander in any direction and you’ll find new quests, enemies, loot and locations to explore. In many respects, Diablo 4 is looking to make the kind of leap that games like Elden Ring and The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild made for their respective franchises.Īnd to be sure, there’s a definite appeal in the freedom that this gearshift brings with it. Rather than play through a series of relatively disconnected maps and dungeons, the latest instalment in Blizzard’s hack-and-slasher takes place across one singular-though-not-seamless open world. The other big difference between Diablo 4 and previous games in the series is a structural one. Even if I didn't really like or care about the story of Diablo 4 all that much, I do really like that the team behind the game had the nerve to try and do something other than what the series has always done and what you'd expect of it. That's a bold choice, and I won't be shocked if it proves to be a divisive one once more people have had the chance to play through the game. I'm someone who comes to these games as much for the loot as the lore, but even so, it felt like I was being drowned in exposition and cut scenes from time to time.ĭiablo 4 genuinely wants you to care about its story, characters and world in a way that previous instalments didn't. That said, the lack of familiar touchstones can also make the narrative here more difficult to grasp and keep up with as the hours drag on. This broader bent towards originality gives Diablo 4 a freshness that the recent mobile spin-off lacked. If you're looking for Tyrael and Deckard Cain, you'll be better served by Diablo Immortal or Diablo 2: Remastered. Instead of leaning on the past, Diablo 4 looks to establish its own cast of heroes, villains, angels and demons. Still, it’s a decent enough setup for a fantasy hack-and-slash RPG like this one, and there’s something to be said because (aside from the playable classes) so little of what’s here feels referential to previous entries in the series. The five classes to choose from are all returning favourites- Necromancer, Rogue, Sorceress, Barbarian and Druid- none of which have the curveball quality of the Diablo 3 roster. As with other games in the series and genre, the most important choice you'll make during character creation is which class you want to play. Set about fifty years after the events of the third game, players take on the role of heroes chasing the trail of a powerful demon named Lilith. Where each prior Diablo game has eagerly snapped up the plot threads left hanging by the one that preceded it, Diablo 4 tries to be its own thing. I can’t say it’s won me over as the definitive demon-slaying dungeon crawler, but there’s a beauty and charm to watching a simple thing you know well morph into something more complicated and unfamiliar. It’s by far the biggest game in the series to date and it's largely successful in its ambitions to offer a different take on the series' occasionally archaic antics. Quantity can sometimes have a quality of its own and Diablo 4 runs pretty far with that idea. If Diablo 3 stripped any possible source of friction, the fourth major instalment in the franchise errs in the opposite direction and finds both value and identity in building things back up. One of the few things Blizzard hasn’t tried to do with the series at this point is to make it more complicated. They’ve even done so on mobile via Diablo Immortal. At this point, series veterans have slashed their way through the hordes of hell more times than they can count. Over the years, developer Blizzard Entertainment has spiced up that format with fresh reasons to slay monsters, new varieties of foes to face off against and a host of armaments and abilities with which to vanquish them. The bigger the monster, the better the rewards. Diablo has a big reputation and a simple formula.
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