Diablo IV is a failure. Or, at least, it has failed to impress this critic.
I played several different characters in Diablo III, beating the game multiple times, playing its expansions, etc. but with Diablo IV I barely feel like playing at all.
The first straw for me was the always-online nature of the game, which meant that even playing single-player you could be limited by internet issues (your own and if anything should go amiss with Blizzard’s servers). Don’t get me wrong: I’m a big multiplayer gamer, but I believe firmly in the option to play a game like Diablo offline, unfettered by server outages. I should no have rubber-banding when playing an action-RPG solo.
Then there is the live-service nature of the game. It’s designed to have seasonal releases in order to sell us yet another Battle Pass. We’re also required to start new characters to enjoy seasonal content, which might work for hardcore fans but for someone relatively casual, it just makes me not want to play.
The last straw—or one of them—is the game’s cosmetic shop, which sells all the best-looking cosmetics in the game. The paid skins are without a doubt superior to what you can grind for in in-game loot or even via the Battle Pass. This is a loot-based game. The whole point of a game like Diablo IV is to power up and find the coolest looking gear. Now, the only way to do that is to pay extra. Pay hand over fist.
I don’t mind paying for skins in games where skins are not the point. A silly Call Of Duty or Fortnite skin is fine. You don’t play those games to unlock skins. But cosmetics in a game where the whole entire point of the game is to find this stuff is a bridge too far, and a truly galling example of greed over gameplay.
Imagine if FromSoftware’s Elden Ring had a cash shop where all the best-looking, coolest armor sets were for sale. Oh sure, they’d just be skins for the actual armor you find in the game, but the armor in the game is only 50% about stats. It’s very much about finding cool-looking stuff that makes your character look badass. A great deal of what makes Elden Ring so special would be lost if its best looking gear was in a cash shop.
So it goes with Diablo IV, a game that’s little more than a hollow, pale shell of what this series once was, corrupted by an unceasing quest for profits—no matter the cost. It could have been great. What a terrible shame.
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