I'd held off on writing anything up on this until I'd played through the first season of which I had started quite late due to other commitments from life. At first glance, I was quite in love with the game as it seemed to have learned a lesson in presentation that Diablo III had chosen to ignore, leaning hard into the dark atmospheric nature of Diablo and Diablo II. In fact, my initial impression was it had sort of cobbled together the best element of those games into something really great and even through the campaign I felt the same. It was this fun (albeit long) campaign with the occasional story misstep here or there that was clearly the result of story changes during development. I could mostly overlook those and just enjoy the campaign enough for what it was.
Cracks began to show after as I'd wondered how this game's version of Diablo III's adventure mode would work. I was pleased to see it was the default after the campaign was completed but there were minor hiccups here or there that left things wanting compared to Diablo III's bounty system. Having to return to the Tree of Whispers so often to re-enable Grim Favor collection dampened fun and a lack of variety of endgame activity made things worse. Nightmare dungeons and helltides are fun but the game definitely needed a bit more variety in its open world so it wasn't just the same handful of things to do over and over. Diablo III's inclusion of bosses in the bounty system is something sorely lacking here as they added that little extra bit of spice to things that broke up an otherwise monotonous flavor.
Nightmare dungeons struggle in comparison to Diablo III's Nephalem Rifts which were quite fun not just due to the sheer amount of mob density but how it leaned into a more arcade style time attack mode where you wanted to rush through as fast as possible to complete things. Diablo IV"s misstep with nightmare dungeons centered around how the dungeons were gated by various mechanics (collect this, click here twice, etc...) that prevented progress and acted more as a time sink than anything else. The nightmare dungeons are fun but in spite of themselves and not because of the actual content which isn't that much fun at all.
I think this is a good game that was standing on the precipice of something far more dire but signs point to the devs looking to right the ship after their own missteps post-release and the next season's changes look interesting. I look to Diablo games to be these evergreen titles I revisit now and then rather than live in them as I find playing games like this much more enjoyable with that approach and I think Diablo IV does succeed in this respect. There must be something there if I'm looking forward to season 2 as I am now.
Cracks began to show after as I'd wondered how this game's version of Diablo III's adventure mode would work. I was pleased to see it was the default after the campaign was completed but there were minor hiccups here or there that left things wanting compared to Diablo III's bounty system. Having to return to the Tree of Whispers so often to re-enable Grim Favor collection dampened fun and a lack of variety of endgame activity made things worse. Nightmare dungeons and helltides are fun but the game definitely needed a bit more variety in its open world so it wasn't just the same handful of things to do over and over. Diablo III's inclusion of bosses in the bounty system is something sorely lacking here as they added that little extra bit of spice to things that broke up an otherwise monotonous flavor.
Nightmare dungeons struggle in comparison to Diablo III's Nephalem Rifts which were quite fun not just due to the sheer amount of mob density but how it leaned into a more arcade style time attack mode where you wanted to rush through as fast as possible to complete things. Diablo IV"s misstep with nightmare dungeons centered around how the dungeons were gated by various mechanics (collect this, click here twice, etc...) that prevented progress and acted more as a time sink than anything else. The nightmare dungeons are fun but in spite of themselves and not because of the actual content which isn't that much fun at all.
I think this is a good game that was standing on the precipice of something far more dire but signs point to the devs looking to right the ship after their own missteps post-release and the next season's changes look interesting. I look to Diablo games to be these evergreen titles I revisit now and then rather than live in them as I find playing games like this much more enjoyable with that approach and I think Diablo IV does succeed in this respect. There must be something there if I'm looking forward to season 2 as I am now.