Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred finally raises the game to the level we had hoped for in 2023. The campaign has a few weaknesses, but the endgame is great and the new Spiritborn class is the new benchmark for future heroes.

Narratively, Vessel of Hatred hits all the right notes. It’s a bit of a strange middle chapter in the story; it's incredibly consequential and does a lot to move things forward, but it doesn’t offer any big conclusions or satisfying payoffs. The original Diablo 4 campaign ended with a promise that the worst was yet to come, and Vessel of Hatred ends the same way. It gives us a better idea of what that eventuality will look like, and raises the stakes in some pretty compelling ways, but some are going to walk away wishing they’d just waited for the full story to come out before diving back in. I’m glad I didn’t wait though, because I think this might be the moment Diablo 4 finally hooks me.

We have a much more different and packed Diablo IV than we had a year ago. There is plenty of endgame activity now and it shows that Blizzard really is listening to it's community's desires, so we can say Diablo is back on the race. If you haven't played it for a while, now is the time to try again.

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is fantastic albeit safe expansion to the already excellent Diablo IV. It's continuation of the story benefits from tighter pacing and a novel concept, all of which is bolstered by a unique new class and distinct region to explore. Coupled with some great new endgame content, and Vessel of Hatred is bound to please Diablo casual and hardcore players alike.

Good new content and a solid continuation of the story: Vessel of Hatred is not spectacular, but it is successful. Thanks to patch 2.0, the game continues to develop in a meaningful way.

Vessel of Hatred does what it was supposed to do: it expands Diablo IV with new content that should keep fans entertained and happy for at least a few weeks, although much of this content is not really different from the free seasonal updates. The new endgame loop is immersive, the all new Spiritborne class is fantastic, but the story barely moved forward and the expansion doesn't feel revolutionary as much as Reaper of Souls was to Diablo III.

There has been a range of mixed feelings about what Blizzard has put on offer with Vessel of Hatred. Just as the story starts to ramp up, it ends quite abruptly, leaving you with the sour taste of knowing you'll need to pay another $40 next year if you want the conclusion. Some of the new features, like mercenaries, feel a tad underbaked. And the new dungeons are still littered with the same choring events from the base game, with many of the same enemies and even the same layouts in some cases. But, the 4-6 hour story has some incredible highs. The new Spiritborn class is incredibly fun to play, and the game's artwork and music direction continue to be a strong suit for Blizzard. But too much of Vessel of Hatred's base experience is undermined by the story's pacing, which runs you through its major events and new characters with a breakneck cadence. And right at the end, it sends you back to grind out more Helltides and familiar dungeons, begging the question of how much here is actually "new." For every new angle in the endgame loop, there are new bugs and balance issues that frustrate the experience. Blizzard is working fast to correct them, but it's only possible to review what's on offer today, and what's on offer today isn't very polished.

Melhor que o 3 em quase tudo, é uma pena que o paragon no eterno não é infinito, mas o jogo é extremamente divertido.

The game was much different from the beginning until just before Lord of Hatred launched. They added a lot of key things that really improved the game and helped you build your character in the season faster and more efficiently. The things the seasons brought, hordes, pits, bosses, all very good and built on a game that was getting better with every season (even if a particular season didn’t quite hit). The story however was the downside of this one. It was very forgettable and more to set the stage for the Lord of Hatred expansion. They also don’t require you to get this expansion, so the seasonal activities are in the zones, but also mirrored in the original zones as well, and these never really got touched. It always felt empty down there. For instance hell tide events, everyone just did the ones above, not in the new lands for the expansion. Same with the bosses, when it came time to farm them for gear, the ones here did not have unique loot, you could just farm the original bosses instead and never touch them. The Undercity was the one thing that was fairly unique, but you could easily ignore it if you wanted to. I was also disappointed that they never added another world boss, so you were stuck with the original 3 still. They did also add that MMO type raid thing for multiple players to go to and it was actually pretty cool the first few times. I liked the concept and the bosses had cool mechanics. However, it was short lived as it was hard to find a group for as the rewards were super underwhelming for how much you had to invest into it. As for the new class, the Spiritborn is super fun to play and has a few really cool builds that feel great. When playing seasonal characters only, it was nice to have another class to rotate to after playing all the other classes so many times. Also, at the end of this expansion, they changed the battlepasses and they were even worse than before. I hate battlepasses anyway, but these truly became gross. The cash shop is also disgustingly priced with $28 skins that are only usable on a single class. Do they look cool? Oh, yea, best skins in the game, by far. Which is another issue. One reason I am not a fan of cash shops is that all the really cool stuff they think of will not naturally be in the game to be earned, they save it all for the cash shop. And even the battlepass skins, they look better than what is in the base game, but still not even close to a skin that is almost the same price as the game itself. Even if I play hundreds of hours for Diablo, I just can never justify spending that much on a single skin (especially in a non-F2P game)

The game addon is good; the cinematics are decent to show the story of the game. But if you didn't play the main game, you may not connect with the main game what the real story is. I didn't get the story very well, but the game addon should give more details to understand. And after clearing out the game, the game should have more content to be more fun in PvP or PVE.

Blizzard made fun of us. They took our money. But they made a different game than it should have. Since Diablo3, they made sales using only the Diablo name. I deleted Diablo after Poe2. I've been playing Diablo since 1. It's a love for me. But they broke it after Diablo2. Diablo 3 and 4 should have been dark souls themed like Poe2.

Blizzard was heading in a good direction with gameplay and class balance in Season 5 of Diablo IV. Vessel of Hatred had the potential to be a knockout for the franchise. The next chapter in the storyline, with some killer cinematics (which Blizzard excels at), a new class to play, and a bunch of additional in-game activities that add variety to the end game, had promise.They already had most of the classes balanced well, and with a few tweaks it could have been great. The Spiritborn could have entered the scene and no one would have minded if it was overpowered but still on par with the other classes. Instead, they released a mostly bland and uneventful storyline. This could be forgiven, since most are here for the gear chase and dopamine hits of big loot. However, the Spiritborn was discovered to be not just overpowered but bugged beyond belief. This made all content trivial after a few days at max **** all the classes been equally balanced and capable of reaching the levels of power that players have come to expect and enjoy, you might not have noticed how pointless the other classes were to play. Adding to the mix, features like runewords are not available to those without the DLC. It's clear that somewhere along the way, the line between engaging gameplay and minimal-cost money grab intersected too closely. For a season with the most new content since launch, it is the shortest amount of time I have played into a season before putting it down until the next. Until next time, Blizzard.