From: Activision Blizzard
For: PS4/5, XB1/X/S, PC
★★★★+
For yes, the looooong wait for the new title in one of gaming’s biggest success stories goes back as far as five years before Donald Trump was elected US president (let that soak in). Its arrival then, is a pretty big deal. And there’s good news: Blizzard has spent that time buffing their diabolical darling to a high level of shine, and Diablo IV arrives as a big, deep experience that’s ready to monopolise all your spare time.
The action-RPG has strayed remarkably little gameplay-wise from its roots, which go (even further) back to the first game in 1996. From an isometric 3-D perspective above the action, you’ll wander around the demon-blighted fantasy land of Sanctuary with your chosen character, running into big clumps of Hell’s minions, restless dead, criminal types or aggrieved wildlife approximately every eight seconds or so and dealing to them with magic or weapons by clicking or buttoning away at them like mad until everything lies dead.
That’s pretty much it, but the simplicity of the basic gameplay has a deep, complex layer of abilities and systems behind it that allow you to approach it in a multitude of different ways.
Each character class — you can pick from the rogue, barbarian, necromancer, sorcerer, or druid — has a huge range of character development options available to them. Would you rather your rogue be all about bows, or blades? Is your druid more interested in turning regularly into a werewolf, or a bear? And these are just the basic-level decisions you have to make before you take your hard-earned levelling points down the thinnest branches of the giant skill tree to think about critical hits, damage types, combos, attack speed, cooldowns and more besides. Then you have to factor in the various effects that endless deluge of loot — which you’ll be constantly finding and equipping and swapping and upgrading — brings to the table. And then, after you hit level 50, you’ll unlock the paragon board, a whole other icon-filled screen of passive buffs you can start playing with for even further customisation.
You’ll be putting all these skills to use primarily in the game’s huge, handcrafted world map as you pursue Lilith, a scion of Hell’s pantheon of demons who has returned to the human world and seems to be up to no good, what with all the soul-corrupting and village massacres. The main story is a well-told one — Blizzard’s reputation for epic cutscenes, and Diablo’s for some grimdark content, are both only enhanced here — but it’s difficult not to be distracted from it for long periods at a time by all the side quests, dungeons, strongholds to conquer, world events, and chances for exploration that festoon the map. You can do it all easily with online friends (or just wandering randoms), too. Prepare for ‘‘just one more mission’’ syndrome to have you going to bed way later than you planned.
Are there any down sides to losing yourself in this big, detailed fantasy world? A couple. Though the game’s main map is carefully curated and rewards exploration, the side dungeons dotted around the map are randomly generated and get very, very samey as an experience fast, which has the unfortunate effect of reminding you of just how much you’re repeating the game loop. And though the game often looks great and is highly detailed, the perspective the series has always used still brings a certain visual muddiness to various animations and actions; if you’re a gamer of a certain vintage like I am, you may find yourself wishing you could freely move the camera around. (Though given the nature of this series, that’s probably a bit like hoping the next Mario game is going to be a gritty exploration of the horrors of war. But still.)
But these are pretty minor quibbles. Diablo IV is a big, beautiful and bloody beast that’s clearly been set up to provide countless hours of gameplay and live on for a long time to come — who knows who might have been president by the time we get Diablo V? Jump in, but just remember to go outside once in a while.
By Ben Allan
