Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred – Diablo є Diablo

With the release of Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, all the reviewers seemed to break through. “The best Diablo you’ve ever seen!!!”, “Finally, Diablo IV is almost perfect!”, “This is exactly the Diablo IV we’ve been waiting for!”. I don’t know, I was pretty much satisfied with the vanilla Diablo IV, and I spent several hundred hours on this game in the first two seasons. So for me, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is not a “game changer”, it’s just a good DLC with a bunch of innovations that make life better. Blizzard always does this, so why should it be different this time?

A girl and her stone

At the end of the story campaign of the original Diablo IV, when the heroes saw that Neyrella had disappeared, taking with her the stone in which Mephistopheles was locked, players realized that they would not be able to do without the expansion. On the other hand, Blizzard has always done this, so why would it abandon a scheme that has worked well for 27 years this time? In case anyone has forgotten, even before the first Diablo, in 1997, there was a Hellfire expansion pack, aka Diablo: Hellfire, but back then we didn’t say DLC, we said Expansion Pack.

Plot, story, and characters are no less important to me than the basic action/RPG game mechanics, and whatever they say, Blizzard knows how to tell a story. It seems like nothing new, almost a traditional fantasy story of a heroine’s journey, who tries to ward off the primary evil from her friends, but gradually loses this battle and inadvertently destroys everything around her. It’s nothing special, but it’s presented well. As always, Blizzard has gorgeous trailers, good lyrics, high-quality voice acting and music. You really sympathize with Neyrella and want to help her, especially since she and the hero have a lot in common.

It’s a good story and a big chunk of history, it seems to be the story part in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred makes up about a third of the main campaign of Diablo IV.

The jungle and those hiding in the jungle

The new region is also quite large. The Nahantu Jungle is about the size of two regions of the original Diablo IV. In fact, we have already been to Nahantu in Diablo II, the region appeared in the third act of the game, but then its name was not mentioned, it was just the border of Kedjistan.

When creating the architecture, clothing, and household items of Nahantu, the developers were inspired by the works of the Mesoamerican pre-Columbian cultures of the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Aztec, and others. But unlike the Aztecs, the inhabitants of Nahantu do not immediately try to sacrifice you to their blood gods; on the contrary, they are friendly people, trying to help a strange stranger who is facing death and even thinking in the spirit of people of the 21st century, about the public good of the entire Sanctuary, not just their own region. This imbalance between the monumental architecture, which is a bit intimidating, and the warlike clothing and rather peaceful behavior of the Nahantu people is a bit disconcerting.

The character of the new class, Spiritborn, is from Nahant. This is a warrior who has a connection with the patron spirits and can call upon their power on the battlefield. There are already a bunch of builds for this class online, and I found it to be a cross between a Druid and a Barbarian, although it has good poisonous abilities and abilities that make enemies inflict damage on themselves. Of course, the Spiritborn has its own test, which allows you to choose spirits that will give you passive bonuses. This class also has armor with helmets and masks that look very warlike, just like the real Aztecs.

Quality of life

The list of fixes in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is huge, and the first thing I noticed when I first came back to the game was that the problem with gems was finally solved, with merchants grouped next to each other so that you don’t have to run far from the portal or even to the other side of the settlement. Speaking of gems, the expansion has additional runes that can only be used in pairs in items with two sockets. One rune receives a special resource for a specific player action, while the other spends it on some useful effect, sometimes very powerful.

What else? We’ve significantly reworked the character progression, it seems that now levels are gained much faster, changed the mechanism for improving things, which was an obvious cheat, changed the frequency and quality of loot, gave the player a pet that collects money and resources for you. We removed the need to go through the Dungeons of the World to change the difficulty level and now you can do it earlier.

And of course, they brought back mercenaries. Who forgot, mercenaries were in both Diablo II and Diablo III, so their absence in Diablo IV was a bit disappointing. In Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred has finally brought them back. Mercenaries are of four different classes, each with its own mini-skill tree, so everything is the same as before. You can have one mercenary with you at all times, the other is called up as reinforcements for specific actions of the player, this can be customized to your build and playstyle. Unlike Diablo II and Diablo III, where mercenaries only distracted some of the enemies, in Diablo IV they are really useful and help the player. During cooperative play, the appearance of world monsters, etc., mercenaries are removed.

I haven’t had a chance to try the new cooperative End-game Dark Citadel yet, so I’m sorry. But it should be interesting. I didn’t really like the dungeon crawling in Nahantu, I hate it when I’m rushed.

Season of Hatred Rising

Along with the release of Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, the game launched Season of Hatred Rising, the sixth season of Diablo IV. Of course, the theme of the season is Mephistopheles and his creatures sneaking into the Sanctuary.

From time to time, huge boss monsters appear in the world, traveling between worlds and summoning thousands of small monsters around them. Players together have to defeat these bosses, which after death open a portal to another world, where a separate dungeon with good rewards awaits you at the end. Trophies include Seething Opals, which affect the player’s reputation during this season, plus unique potions.

Diablo is Diablo

So I’ll say it again, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is not a revelation, it is a gradual development of the original Diablo IV. Something was adjusted, something was fixed, but in fact, nothing was broken in the original game, the basic mechanics are classic and of high quality. So if you liked Diablo IV and are looking for a sequel, then Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is for you. If you don’t like Diablo IV and Diablo-like games in general, you shouldn’t try it.

By the way, please note that while Diablo IV is included in Game Pass, the expansion pack must be purchased separately, and it’s not cheap. But that’s actually the point of Game Pass: it’s free, all the extra goodies are paid for.