Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred

After conducting an infernal ritual, Blizzard Entertainment has once again torn the veil separating the mortal realm and the burning hells asunder, and another Diablo IV expansion once again beckons, threatening to drag our free time screaming into the void. Hearkening back to Diablo II’s Lord of Destruction expansion - still the gold standard of supplemental Diablo content - Lord of Hatred picks up right where Vessel of Hatred ended, and after learning about Mephisto’s destination and rumors of a MacGuffin that can be used against the resurgent Prime Evil, you’ll be off to the game’s new region, the Skovos Isles.

Familiar Faces from the (not so) Distant Past

Veterans of the Diablo franchise should be familiar with the Skovos Isles, as it’s the homeland of the Amazon character from Diablo II. Unlike Kurast, the setting of Vessel of Hatred, however, the Skovos Isles have never been explored in a Diablo game before. Also, like in Vessel of Hatred, the returning playable characters are joined by fresh faces… one of which is surprisingly NOT the aforementioned Amazon. Instead, two other Diablo II alumni have answered the call, the fan-favorite Paladin (released as a preorder bonus months before Lord of Hatred actually launched) and the Warlock, a relatively new addition to Diablo II, being added to Diablo II Resurrected over twenty-five years after the original game’s release.

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Skill trees have been completely reworked - every skill now has three high-level variants which can change the very nature of a skill, from keywords to damage type.

It should be no surprise that the two new characters bring novel gear, aesthetics, skills, and playstyles to the game, but one of the more significant gameplay overhauls has seen skill trees redesigned for all characters. Passive skills, from what we’ve seen, have been removed and each remaining skill now has three final variants that can drastically change how the skill functions. This includes core traits like its damage type and classification, potentially allowing players to mix and match skills that were, at least initially, different “types“ of skills.

For example, the Warlock has many skills that have either the Occult/Hellfire or Abyss/Demonology keywords, and most of these are one skill point investment away from changing between the two. Since stacking keyword-specific bonuses on gear and Paragon boards is essential to boost your stats to ludicrous levels for endgame content, this should result in more build variety. Even if you’re not playing one of the expansion’s new characters, all players can look forward to fussing around with these new build options, potentially breathing new life into a game that’s rapidly approaching its third year.

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Skovos is one of the few places in Sanctuary that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to actively kill you - a nice change of pace that reinforces the story.

The Home of the Spartazons

What better venue to try these new builds out than the novel environs of the Skovos Isles? Compared to the hostile settings from the original game, the Skovos Isles are actually… pleasant? Wearing its Hellenic inspirations on its sleeve, Skovos is littered with unpainted marble statues and shrines hinting at the land’s rich history, you’ll traverse grassy hills, ancient ruins, sandy beaches and more.

The Skovos Isles, compared to just about every other region in the history of Diablo, seems unspoiled, vigilantly protected by its matriarchal caste of warrior women, the Amazons, who have also been Hellenized from the “cheerleader” character who debuted in Diablo II. It’s a nice change of pace that meshes well with the fast-paced, set-piece heavy narrative; there’s actually something worth protecting here, and if you’re not quick about it, Skovos will end up resembling every other haunted corner of Sanctuary.

A Love Letter to Lore Nerds

Fortunately for long-time Diablo lore nerds, Lord of Hatred isn’t just a pretty wrapper - the narrative doesn’t waste any time making big moves and keeps up the momentum throughout its 8-10 hour runtime. While we’re going to avoid specifics for the sake of spoilers, there’s very little filler or busywork in this fast-paced story. Significant developments occur at regular intervals, your progress (and impending doom) is marked by an oncoming lunar eclipse, and you’ll often have a companion or another at your side. While it’s not the longest expansion, we ended up playing through most of the new campaign content in a single day not because of its brevity, but because we constantly wanted to see what would happen next and were rarely disappointed. Some developments did seem undercooked or abrupt and one dungeon approached tedium when we had to enter four different portals to clear themed areas to get our hands on the (second, familiar) Macguffin, but even then new revelations and a bit of nostalgic music from older games helped keep the slowest part of the narrative from stalling, being merely mediocre instead of outright objectionable.

If you haven’t been following the story of Diablo for the past 30 or so years, some of the minutiae may not be as interesting to you, and it really feels like Lord of Hatred was written for the diehard lore fans. While it sounds simple enough on the surface, delving into Prime Evil family drama is endlessly fascinating, especially considering the stakes of getting wrapped up in such squabbles, and we hope to see more of it in the future. At the end of the day, Diablo’s narrative is at its best when it features godlike entities faltering in petty and ironically very human ways, while the mortals around them briefly aspire to something more - something Lord of Hatred manages to convey quite well.

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The Horadric Cube can be used to recycle or refine gear,

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while Charms and Talismans allow you to push your builds further than ever before!

The Cube, Charms, and Collectibles

In addition to a stellar story, Lord of Hatred features many gameplay additions and refinements, the most notable of which (including the redesigned skill trees) being the addition of a fishing minigame, the Horadric Cube, and Charms. Like most beloved things in Diablo, the latter two are returning features from Diablo II, with the Horadric Cube allowing the player to further refine and recycle gear in novel ways to chase the nigh unobtainable goal of getting the perfect gear. This comes with the unfortunate side effect of adding even more materials and systems to a game already bloated to bursting.

Charms, on the other hand, are pure power creep… in a good way! Early in the expansion you’ll be given a talisman, a sort of “hub” item which allows you to equip up to six charms, and both charms and talismans come in the standard color-coded rarities. Rarer talismans can house more charms and these, even the more common variants, can grant useful boons like bonus skills, resistances, movement speed, and more. Charms also come in sets, which are rare enough to be exciting but common enough to play around with; Finding a handful of set charms that match the sort of build you’re looking for is exactly the sort of thing worth grinding for in a Diablo game. For example, completing a set of five charms for our Warlock tripled our damage output and took us past Torment 10 difficulty. If only all things were as simple and pure as charms…

As for fishing… well, it’s not the most obvious of additions for a Diablo game, being a simple minigame started by using an emote and pressing a button at the right time to snag a fish. Caught fish can then be added to your collection, and since there are 117 of the things out there (according to the in-game challenges list, anyways), it’s a bit of a scavenger hunt that may tickle some the right way. That and the addition of Chronicles of Creation collectibles (similar to the Altars of Lilith from the mainland) will give you some excuse to explore the maps thoroughly, but neither is terribly compelling content for a Diablo game.

The final major addition to Lore of Hatred is “War Plans”, which basically adds another RPG layer on top of numerous other activities. You’ll be able to select between randomly generated war plans that task you with completing Nightmare Dungeons, Pit Runs, farming Helltides, Kurast Undercity, etc., and getting extra rewards for doing so. Among these extra rewards are what’s functionally XP that can be spent to unlock perks that alter the behavior and rewards of these events - think skill trees for your grinding chores. You’ll need to do a lot of these activities to get the resources to approach the pinnacle of endgame power, so spicing them up a bit is certainly a welcome change.

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While grinding a character up to the higher tiers of Torment difficulty can be satisfying, combat in Lord of Hatred can still devolve into a chaotic mess and hasn’t significantly changed since Vessel of Hatred.

Lights and Noise

Alas, as much as the story shines, the core gameplay loop in Lord of Hatred hasn’t evolved much since Vessel of Hatred, and what was engaging then is quickly becoming a chore, especially with an ever-expanding number of events, bosses, NPCs, materials, and mechanics to engage with. Taking a fresh character and turning them into a shadowy monstrosity casually dealing billions of damage at the press of a button can be fun, but the endgame gameplay in Lord of Hatred often devolves into a cacophony of light and noise, where the player is mostly limited to repeating a handful of memorized skill combos while trying their best to look out for damage spikes that threaten to one-shot their toon.

If you didn’t find that compelling a year and a half ago, you probably won’t now, and if you’ve been growing burned-out on the old endgame grind, Lord of Hatred doesn’t offer enough changes to make the formula feel fresh. Lord of Hatred will almost certainly please the long-time fans for its narrative and plot developments, and the die-hard power-gamers for its redesigned skill trees, characters and charms, but gamers in the middle might not care enough about the former or be willing to invest the time and energy into the latter to make this a compelling purchase.