Diablo IV Beta report

A Diablo-Ing we Shall Go!

Ever since I got Diablo on PC way back, I have always had a fascination and love for this genre of game. I’ve played a lot of Diablo-likes/clones over the years. I always come back to Diablo though, from the recent Diablo II remaster, to endless runs of Diablo III – I’ve been immersed in the world of Sanctuary a lot.

I dived back into Diablo III when the Reaper of Souls and Necromancer came out, having played a little with the Crusader as well. I went right to Necromancer and never looked back, having always loved that class from Diablo II.

Flash forward to 2023 and the recent Diablo IV Beta (both the closed and open) and we’re looking at a very different beast, IV combines the best of games like Grim Dawn (an excellent Diablo-like game) and Diablo II with modern graphics/physics/and design.

After the pre-rendered intro played and I beheld the dark majesty of Lilith again from the stellar trailer, it was time to dive in properly.

A few things to know about D IV from the get go: It’s open world for a start, and seamless to travel from one area to the next, even though we were confined to Act I’s Fractured Peaks and given only a small sample of the upcoming game’s content. It still felt pretty amazing to walk from one massively detailed area to the next, and drink in the superb visuals that the developers have created for this dive into Sanctuary for the 4th time.

It's Live Service, but don’t let that put you off, whilst we still don’t know how the cosmetic-only store is going to function, the LS elements in the game are not intrusive and they actually helped to bring the world to life in more ways than one.

It uses a custom character for your class, and you see them decked out in your hard-won loot in the cut-scenes.

RIGHT, DAY 1!!!

The first day of the closed (and open) Beta was rough at the start, long queue times, frequent server kicks and a few technical issues plagued my experience, but it wasn’t enough to put me off. Blizzard was on it quickly though, and those issues on Day One were gone in the Beta(s) by the next day – from that point on for both weekends I had only a few seconds wait time before I was able to dive back into Sanctuary each time.

My Series X was the platform of choice and I dived into the game as a solo player to begin with, to get the feel of it for someone who might not have a group of eager friends to join up with for adventures.

Character creation is simple, but effective, and the first weekend allowed for the Rogue, Sorcerer, and Barbarian for the three playable classes – the second weekend saw the Necromancer and Druid added to the final roster.

I created a Sorcerer and played on the story difficulty to begin with, aka: Adventurer.

Intro to the Fractured Peaks (finally)

The game uses your custom character as part of the cut-scenes, and immerses you into the thick of things. From the moment you see your creation on horseback, trekking across the icy wilderness, you are pulled in – and when that scene ends, the camera pulls back and you’re in the game.

This is it, the third person Diablo-view and fully rotating camera, with Evade on the B button on the Xbox controller.

It looks good, and from my first impressions it played well. I was soon blasting wolves and other things on my little exploration around the very first frozen starting area, encountering a few minor coin drops and a few bits here and there. No loot as of yet, but that’s only to be expected from a starting area.

Soon though, I was in a little settlement with an old (addled) priest and learning of a dangerous place somewhere in the wilderness from one of the people there. I had no choice but to grab my wand, wits, and venture forth beyond the relative warmth and safety of the settlement. Still no players, but as I learnt later, this is intentional as the first bit acts as the tutorial area and prologue to the first Act.

I did what I always do in Diablo-style games though, ignored the main path and explored every nook/cranny of the region that was available to me. I killed wolves, skeletons, and found a few bits of loot at last. Things I could wear, and use as a Sorcerer, to boost the character early on.

Unlike Diablo III (which I loved) this felt a lot more like useful loot, right out of the gate, something that Blizzard appear to have nailed with the sequel. Even the common, rare, magic item rarities in the game give you something when you get them.

Plus, once you break them down, they’re added to the roster of transmog (cosmetic) items you can freely swap around/change/equip on the wardrobe later on. There’s no cost in gold either to change these items out, so you can mix/match and even setup your favourite outfits so you can look like a badass clearing quests/dungeons/side quest content.

DUNGEON TIME!

Now kitted out for a bit more of a fight, I venture into the first tutorial dungeon (it’s a big one, not a little throw-away space) to destroy more skeletons, and Fallen (demons) which provide a greater challenge.

Again, no automatic healing regeneration at this point, and your potion bottle has charges now rather than a cooldown. You can heal from health orbs too which drop from enemies with a decent enough regularity to top your hp up.

The Diablo II feel is strong here, and through the whole game you get this. Gone is the almost cartoon-style of Diablo III and it’s grittier dark-fantasy dark-tone than you can shake a stick at.

It works, and the dungeon setting/dressing is really well done.

The first boss beckons, and he’s not too hard for my Sorcerer, since she’s got a level or so by now and a few zappy powers to throw his way. He’s no push-over though, and there’s a few moments where I think I’m going to end up dying and trying again.

I make it, get the loot, and get out.

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO… WHAT?

I won’t say exactly what I said at the time this happened, and if you’re concerned about spoilers, then just quit this section whilst you’re ahead and I’ll catch you up to you after you hit the next. Blizzard pulled a nice one here, perhaps it was to be expected, but in terms of the story and the whole tone of the game – it works really well.

Celebrated, then drugged, and nearly sacrificed to the daughter of Hatred/Mother of Sanctuary… wow…

It’s one of Diablo IV’s stand-out gotcha moments, it lands perfectly, and hits all the right notes.

Beyond the Storm

Hey, so welcome back after that little spoiler bit, seriously, don’t scan up a few lines if you want to go in fresh. I’m not going to narrate all of the tutorial, but just let you know that there’s a fair bit of decent and fun content to give you some nice XP and a few skill points to play around with.

Eventually you’re going to get to the first main settlement in the Fractured Peaks, do a few more errands, and open up the game.

Now you’ll see other players, and they won’t be a hindrance. They move around, just like you, on their own little journey. Outside the gates of these places, you’ll see them now and then too, and can even dive in to help them on Public Events that spring up all around the map.

Or just help them kill monsters, and whilst you’re near another player, you’ll get an XP boost – so there’s always an incentive to help someone out beyond the ‘it’s the right thing’ to do.

You’ll get your first batch of side quests, and the game will open up like a flower, revealing petal-by-gameplay-petal the rest of the content the world has to offer.

Remember, the Beta is literally the first Act of the game, so this is how it’s going to be (barring changes/fixes) when you get the full game in June.

The blacksmith, the inn, and the other shops all open up here as well, with some of the later features being locked to later progression levels.

The level cap was 25 for the Beta, and just a fragment of the full experience.

The Experience?

I played Sorcerer, Rogue, and Barbarian characters across the first weekend and found the gameplay between all three to be varied, with Rogue and Sorcerer as firm-favourites of mine. Barbarian was clunky, uninteresting at low levels, but got better as I pushed into the higher levels. This is something that Blizzard are working on, they’re aware that the Barbarian was uninteresting.

I got to play around with the class-feature of the Sorcerer and the Rogue though, and whilst I won’t dive into too much detail – they were both interesting.

I followed the main story all the way to the end, dived a few bigger dungeons, and experienced a lot of the content as a solo player as well as part of a 3-character team with a couple of friends.

It was good. Sorcerer, Rogue, and Barbarian (weaker of us) encountered a lot of content, and even the Butcher – who absolutely murdered us (as he’s supposed to) in one of the dungeons when he randomly jumped into it.

The experience was smooth for all of us, and we had a ton of fun, which is exactly what this writeup is about. Not the skills/technical side of the game, but the FUN factor – and for someone who has 100s of hours into Diablo III, this was a lot of fun.

We did more side things, found Altars of Lilith (realm wide buffs for characters), and unlocked Aspects in the Codex of Power. These are legendary powers that can be put into a legendary item to change the power to suit you, or turn a rare into a weaker version of that legendary item power. (there’s more to it than this, but it’ll be good enough for now).

Raising the Stakes Week 2

Week 2 rolled around, allowing us to keep our progression and all the Renown we’d built up. As you adventure in the game, you’ll hit Renown XP milestones, and they unlock permanent boosts and extra gold/skill points for new characters you create.

So, my Necromancer (yep I had to!) rolled into the second Beta test with 3 points, a ton of gold, and more power than a regular starter character.

Out of all the classes I tried (even Druid) I found I loved the Necromancer the most, and having access to Raise Skeleton out of the gate was great fun. I wanted to expand on the Army of the Dead Commander style of play through the Beta, and that’s what I did. I went into parts of the skill tree that gave me buffs to those minions, and had a blast learning what skills worked well with my build.

There’s going to be a lot of build diversity in the game, with legendary items changing up the build even more. Heck, even rare items can suddenly alter the way you play.

I completed Act I again as my Necromancer and enjoyed even more of the content right until the Beta part 2 ended, leaving the whole experience stoked to get the final game and impressed that Blizzard sorted out the issues with the Beta very quickly.

Rubber-banding happened on Day one of the second week, but was gone by the second day.

Log-in times were longer to begin with, and again, by day two they were almost non-existent and if there was one, it was no more than 6-10 seconds for all of us in our little clan.

Final Thoughts on the Beta

Diablo IV is in a very good place right now, and I’m confident that Blizzard’s dev team for the game have their eyes firmly on the prize. The change-log for the Beta is already up on their site and they have proved they can fix issues and get people in quickly. It’s one of the best Beta’s I’ve been part of in that regard.

It’s also a damn fine game, with immersive world design, cut-scenes that pull you into the actual world and bring a cinematic flair to Diablo which has only ever been seen in the pre-rendered scenes up until now.

Now though, you see your character front-centre and part of the world/action.

That alone is a fantastic change. A truly cinematic dark-fantasy action RPG is on the horizon, and I can’t wait to bring my Necromancer back from the Beta (design wise) and rebuild her from the ground up (all characters were wiped).

The game will be tons of fun for the solo player, and just as fun for the co-op player. There was no PVP in the Beta (I won’t be doing that anyways – I hated the Dark Zone in Division 1 and 2 and never touched PVP in Destiny).

It ran smoothly, looked great, had a customisable and responsible control system on the Series X and just felt ‘right’ in a lot of ways.

I’m really stoked to go back to the world and explore everything come June.

Perhaps I’ll see you there, we can raise a tankard, or you do the drinking whilst I raise the dead!

Diablo IV Beta changes: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23938289/diablo-iv-open-beta-retrospective-transforming-feedback-into-change