Diablo IV’s new season begins today and I’ve decided I’m going to try one more time to get into the game.
I was a late-bloomer when it comes to D4 since I stubbornly waited for Microsoft to jump through all the legal hoops to purchase Acti-Blizzard, and then waited some more for D4 to hit Game Pass. It’s not that I’m cheap, it’s just that I don’t like spending any more money than I have to!
I first jumped in a couple seasons ago. Since I hadn’t played I figured I should do the campaign, but I drifted away before I finished and the season ended, relegating my character to the dust bin zone, or whatever it is called. Eternal Realm maybe? I found the campaign was super depressing and at the same time super dull. I think there was one fight in the whole thing that stumped me for a bit but otherwise I just button mashed my way through it until I lost interest.
Eventually, during last season, I finally went back and finished the campaign over on the Eternal Realm, and looking back I feel like I could have safely skipped it. I’ve already forgotten the story. Mephisto is in a rock, something happened to Lilith… maybe we killed her? There was some other dude, Elias or something, and he did something bad but it left such a light impression on me that I’ve forgotten it. I’m not really knocking the story itself so much as the pacing and the lack of any kind of tension since it was all so easy…I just wasn’t really paying attention. I’d happily read the novelization of the story if such a thing existed!
But now with a new season I can create a new character and just focus on leveling and raising world tiers and getting to the end game (my character that played the campaign got nowhere near level cap) and seeing what that is about. Maybe I’ll see other players on the map! Maybe I’ll stumble into content that kicks my butt and I’ll have to think about builds and how to be better. Maybe I’ll find and craft/improve some cool loot! It could happen!
My biggest issue, though, is the whole setup where you roll a new character, then when the season ends you send them to the Eternal Realm, but at the same time you do a new season starts so you start another new character for that season. I kind of wish there was a reason to go back and play all these characters that have been set aside. I mean nothing is preventing you from doing that but to do so means to give up the goodies you get from playing a Seasonal character. So it seems to me you’re basically starting from scratch every season and effectively throwing that character away at the end of the season. It is QUITE possible I’m missing something as I’ve never ‘completed’ a season but that’s how it feels to me heading into it.
Maybe I’ll learn better this season.
Is anyone else jumping in?
I played through D4 once. I thought my static group might play — we played D2 and D3 — but we never did, so I fell out of it because it’s just the same game all over again, next time through, though perhaps harder.
I just didn’t find the game very fun. It leans into that whole dark, post-apocalypse style, but there is no joy in it. I like games with at least a little joy. I think D3 did provide that, with the heavenly redemption at the end and throughout. That may be why I would replay D3 again and again, but never felt the slightest desire to return to D4.
Yeah it is relentlessly grim, for sure.
I feel like there’s a real opportunity for a game with these kinds of systems that are a little more upbeat in tone. Like my sense is that Path of Exile is also pretty grim, and that new one, No Rest For the Wicked or something? Seems the same.
Where’s a game with a compelling ARPG game loop but graphics and tone like, I dunno, a Ratchet & Clank game or something? Heck or even a Superhero vibe, like a Spiderman ARPG with witty quips and such.