AMID an immeasurable mound of angelic and demonic corpses, the greatest divorce story of the year in a video game has finally been released.
Many eons ago, in their attempt to escape the unending conflict and war between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, the demoness Lilith and the angel Inarius secretly created Sanctuary (Diablo’s version of earth) on a separate plane of existence.
On Sanctuary, other angels and demons that betrayed their factions inevitably coupled and gave birth to the Nephalem, the first generation of angel-demon offspring who were stronger than their parents.
Inarius viewed the Nephalem as abominations, while Lilith planned to use her children to end the war. Realising that Inarius, along with the other rogue angels and demons planned to kill her children, Lilith loses her mind and kills everyone, except Inarius.
Unwilling to kill her due to love, Inarius banishes Lilith to “the Void”, and sets a plan in motion that would make each generation of Nephalem weaker, leading to the present-day weak humans.
Inarius then disappears from the eyes of humanity.
Diablo IV is set half a century after the events of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.
Due to the events in Reaper of Souls severely decimating the number of angels and demons, Lilith is freed from her prison, and seizes the opportunity due to the power vacuum with her children and the rest of humanity for unknown plans.
Stained history
The action role-playing (ARPG) genre is pretty much set in stone, especially dungeon-crawling looters. There is very little to reinvent unless it’s a small indie developer seeking to push the boundaries of the genre.
Diablo IV understands and accepts that. It has no intention of reinventing the wheel. What the game does is import everything that worked in previous Diablo games and ARPGs, and tweaks them for what this game seeks to achieve in terms of entertainment, fun and re-playability.
Back in 2012, everyone remembers Diablo III’s chaotic launch; from online servers crashing due to the influx of players attempting to join games, to the Real Money Auction House that pushed monetisation of in-game gear, the terrible loot systems, and the absurd imbalanced difficulties in postgame content (regular bees on Inferno difficulty could kill players in just a second).
Once players reached the endgame of the main story campaign, they were met with the terrible, teenage soap opera writing that lay in wait, as the series’ prime antagonist Diablo incessantly whined like a teenager throughout the players’ trek through the final area to defeat the demon.
Diablo III was released as a broken game, and it only truly shined years later after an expansion and many, many updates. Many doubted whether Blizzard learned their lesson, and just as many were wary that Diablo IV would launch in a similar state.
It did not. Diablo IV lives up to, and in some ways, surpasses the hype.
Versatile playstyles
Diablo IV works just like every other Diablo game. After booting the game up, and a cold opening cutscene, players will choose one of five classes for their character, customise their appearance, and are then immediately thrown into gameplay.
The classes are classics from 2001’s beloved Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
One of the three melee classes, Barbarians are close-quarters combat experts and they can wield four weapons at the same time. How they function is essentially running – or leaping – into enemies and smashing their faces in.
The second melee (but mainly mixed) class, Druids are able to transform into werebears and werewolves, while also using every aspect of nature, including animals and natural calamities. The third mixed melee class are the Rogues, combatants that can use both close quarters and ranged attacks, along with traps, stealth etc.
The two magic-based classes are the Necromancers, dark arts practitioners that are able to summon armies of the undead while also using spells that manipulate the dead, and Sorcerers, wizards that use lightning, fire and ice spells, along with other magical elements, such as teleportation.
There isn’t a single “This is the best class.” All five play specific pros and cons depending on where players are in the game. For example, Barbarians and Druids are fairly weak at the start of the game, but they truly shine in the endgame, where their health and defenses allow them to fight 1-vs-100 enemies without breaking a sweat.
A step up from the past
Diablo IV, despite taking a lot of inspiration from the second game, ups the ante by tilting away from standard role-playing game mechanics to full-fledged action role-playing game mechanics.
What that means is that this game is fast. It pushes players to be more proactive and aggressive with dealing with the myriad of enemies and bosses in the game.
Unlike Diablo III’s rather generic bosses, Diablo IV’s bosses are unique and each play out differently. That said, some of the dungeon bosses outside of the main story are rather generic; they’re just sponges for punishment a.k.a. pummel their faces until they stop moving.
The faster combat incentivises taking down enemies fast and to continue moving through the area, dungeon or story mission because the game’s map of each “zone” is huge, and each zones have so much content packed into them.
Diablo IV takes around 30 hours to complete, and that hinges on whether you decide to exclusively chase after the story, or if you’re wandering across each zone looking for new side quests or loot to perfect your character’s ability to turn demons into piles of limbs.
On top of these, there are in-game achievements to chase after, from exploration to feats in combat.
Another improvement is the series return to its roots.
Diablo III was colourful, lacked the necessary atmosphere and its villains were comical. Here, everything oozes depression. The world is broken, and it shows, from the terrain to every characters’ lives that players will come across. By not being a meme, Lilith singlehandedly upstages every villain in the previous game by simply sticking to what made the villains in the first two Diablo games great.
The game may have been released around an air of suspicion that it would be as terrible as its predecessor, but Diablo IV is a clear, marked improvement for the series as a sequel, and as a testament to what makes ARPG good. This game will inevitably end up on many ‘Game of the Year’ lists.