Diablo IV Review | Exciting Fantasy Adventure | PlayStation

Diablo IV Review 2023 | Exciting PlayStation 5 Fantasy Game

Join us as we share our Diablo IV review, experiences and gameplay with one of the top fantasy games of 2023. You won't want to miss out!

Operating System: PS5

Application Category: Game

Editor's Rating:
4.8

Our Diablo IV review covers a brand-new fantasy game launching today, with Blizzard Entertainment as the developer and publisher. It features the return of Lilith, about 50 years after the events in Diablo III. Since she and Inarius created Sanctuary to protect human beings from the effects of the Sin War, she wants her children back. It’s up to you and a few other Nephalim to stop her.

Fortunately, we took part in the Beta and enjoyed playing the game during the Early Access over the past few days. With the Druid and Necromancer running around Sanctuary, you won’t want to miss the gameplay videos of our Diablo IV review. We’ll spread them over this article so you can check them out along the way.

Disclaimer: We bought the Early Access version of the game and didn’t receive any codes or freebies from Blizzard Entertainment.

Diablo IV Review Section 1: Story, Quests, and Acts

The Diablo IV Beta already gave us a taste of things to come, even if there were some issues with it, while Blizzard was still developing the dark fantasy game. When it finally came to the Early Access release, we experienced so much more, making us want to play it as much as possible.

Let’s look at the first part of the Diablo IV review: the story, quests, and acts.

Lilith Returns

As the introduction to the game begins, we see Lilith make a return to Sanctuary. She’s been awakened, and she doesn’t like what she sees in this world that she and the Archangel Inarius created. From what you can see when you play Diablo IV, she’s ready to awaken her children with demonic powers.

What I love about this story is that it hearkens back to the Diablo books written by Richard A. Knaak, which deals with The Sin War. It also contains Lilith and how the main hero, a Nephalim, needs to use his abilities to help the possessed people and fight back the demons.

Four Acts

As is normal for the game series, Diablo IV presents four different acts, each set in specific locations. For example, Act I takes place in Fractured Peaks, which was also the Beta region. This time round, it has an open-world theme, which means you can freely begin Acts I to III quests when you wish. However, Act IV is reserved for when you’ve completed these first three.

Main and Side Quests

The quest window shows you various types of missions you can undertake. The main mission progresses the plot, while the side tasks help you level up and obtain powerful items and artefacts. Besides small villager quests, you also have priority ones that have to do with your character classes in Diablo IV. If you want to unlock the tradesmen in town, like the Jeweller or Alchemist, you’ll need to undertake their priority tasks, too.

Different Diablo IV Classes

Another norm of the dark fantasy game series is the choice of which class and gender you want to play. In Diablo IV, you have the Barbarian, Sorcerer, Druid, Necromancer, and Rogue. As you maybe can tell, these names are similar to classes in Diablo II. I’m really glad to see the return of the Druid, which was my favourite and replaced by the Witch Doctor in Diablo III.

What I loved for my Diablo IV review is how each class has a small story in the game. The Druid has an entire city or village to save and return to its former glory. Once you do so, you unlock spirit boons that make you more powerful. For the rest of this article, most of my class focus will be on the Druid.

Revealing the Entire Map

While you can easily run wherever you want in Diablo IV, you may want to pay attention to the map details, especially the icons on the top. Each area has specific tasks to perform if you want 100% completion. For example, it indicates the number of Lilith shrines to destroy, areas to reveal, wayshrines, strongholds to defeat, and more. If you’re like me, you’ll spend more of your time completing these items than the actual story.

How long to play Diablo IV to completion?

Before the game launched, Blizzard indicated that the main story in Diablo IV would take about 35 hours to complete. That’s just the plot. If you add all the side quests, small missions, and 100% completion, you can easily triple this. Then, wash, rinse, and repeat for the other classes. There’s no doubt that this dark fantasy game is the biggest in the series.

Only Online Play

The one downside to Diablo IV, and probably the only one, is that the game forces you to play online on a server. It needs to log in before you can start or continue your game. You’ll see other players run across the map, but you don’t need to engage with them at all. So, while you can join forces, you can still play solo or local multiplayer with two on a screen, but online.

Diablo IV Review Section 2: Gameplay Mechanics

While our Diablo IV review section on the story is quite lengthy, wait until you get a glimpse of this portion covering the game mechanics. Yes, we have a lot to cover, and even this doesn’t include everything you will experience.

Learning how to play Diablo IV

If you’re a beginner to this franchise, don’t worry. Learning how to play Diablo IV is as easy as pie. Tooltips appear as you start playing, explaining what every aspect of the mechanics is about. Also, you’ll have priority quests that introduce you to the tradesmen and what you can do in their stores. 

Create a Character and Change Appearance

The first task you’ll undertake is creating a character with a specific class in Diablo IV. As mentioned, there are five classes (Barbarian, Sorcerer, Druid, Necromancer, Rogue), and then you’ll select a gender. From there, you can change some of your looks that will last for the entire game. Keep in mind that you’ll have a wardrobe in the main town to change how you or your clothes and weapons look.

Limited Inventory

As is a staple in the dark fantasy series, you need to watch your inventory. There’s limited space, which means you’ll need to deal with loot you obtain when you’re full. You can either sell items, salvage them, or store them in your storage chest in the room you’re renting. At later stages, when you take on lengthy dungeons, you may need to teleport to town to deal with excess baggage.

Your Base Skills

When you start playing Diablo IV and obtain your first Skill Point, you’ll have your base attack. For the Druid, I chose to transform into a werewolf and attack with my claws. These attacks don’t use any Mana or Spirit, and you can use them at any time. You can freely assign them to any of the available buttons, which is a return to the Diablo II skill mechanics.

Upgrading Skills and Abilities

Every time you level up or complete specific zone tasks, you’ll obtain a Skill Point. These let you unlock new abilities that make you more powerful. Active spells or skills require you to use your Mana or Spirit, while Passive spells work in the background while you fight. You can see them as buffs to your abilities. Even when you reach the end of your skill tree, you can always go back and assign new skill points to abilities you skipped.

Salvaging and Upgrading

I mentioned salvaging earlier in my Diablo IV review. What this means is destroying armour or weapons you don’t need for parts so that you can use them to upgrade items you’re actually wearing or using. Even the jeweller lets you create a socket or upgrade jewellery. Thankfully, you can also imprint Aspects you’ve discovered by completing dungeons, transforming your Rare items into Legendary ones. It’s a much better system than Diablo III had. 

Enemy and Area Levels and Difficulty

Some locations require you to be at a specific level before you can enter them. When it comes to enemy creatures, they’re usually a level below you or the same, even if you go back to where you started. That means we don’t have to worry about ramping up Torment levels outside the game anymore. However, there is a World Tier II difficulty if you want the game to be more challenging. Also, you can play Hardcore mode, which starts your character back at level 1 when you die.

Elite monsters are still a thing in Diablo IV, giving these creatures more powers than the norm. There are also bosses, which have different levels of health to destroy. When you reach a milestone or arrow on the health bar, you’ll see health potions drop. Usually, the boss kicks it up a notch at these points. 

Various Events and Location Types

While you have the main cities and areas in each location, there are different location types. For instance, cellars are quick and easy to clear with one or two rooms. Dungeons are much larger, usually comprising various rooms with several tasks to complete. When you finish a dungeon, you’ll receive an aspect to place on one of your items to make them legendary. However, you need to have the right class or item for that aspect.

Timing the Ultimate Ability

One of your skills is an Ultimate Ability, and you can only select one per class. For the Druid, I went for a werewolf ability that hits ten enemies within a few seconds, damaging them all quickly. There are cooldown periods for them, which is why you need to learn to time using them properly. I usually reserve them for a boss or elite, or even when a group of monsters attack at once.

Choosing Skills Wisely

I want to touch on one more mechanic when it comes to Diablo IV skills. You only have 6 skill slots to assign abilities. Therefore, you need to decide what type of build you want for each class. You should experiment with different combinations of skills to see which is the right fit for you. I went with a Storm Werewolf Companion build, focusing on companions and lightning strikes to accompany my werewolf abilities.

We’ll do our best to provide Diablo IV builds per class in time to come.

Unlocking Mounts

We were all excited to hear that mounts were coming to Diablo IV, much like Sacred 2 had. It was the one element I was really looking forward to experiencing. It looks like Blizzard decided only the cream of the crop should earn them. You can only unlock mounts in Act IV, once you’ve complete the other three acts. That means you’ll spend hours, if not days, playing before you can finally ride one.

Buy from the Diablo IV In-Game Shop

You may or may not be aware of the drama that surrounded the Diablo franchise when microtransactions appeared in the mobile game, Diablo Immortal. Sadly, I believe it’s the result of the Activision takeover that happened since they love using this element in their games, such as Call of Duty. Fortunately, the items you can buy in the store are merely cosmetic at this stage and don’t affect performance or skills. You’ll just look cooler than anyone else, showing off your bling.

Diablo IV Review Section 3: Graphics, Sounds and Effects

If you’re still with us at this stage of this Diablo IV review, kudos. It means you really are interested in knowing what this dark fantasy game is like, and you deserve a badge. While we’re working on gamifying our site with such beautiful incentives, for now, we’ll reward you with the next section of our article.

Beautiful Graphics and Environments

Previous games in the series were beautiful for their time. Diablo IV doesn’t disappoint, showcasing updated visuals and content. Playing on the PlayStation 5, the high-definition environments are stunning to behold, and the areas have different biomes that react to you walking through them. There’s a darker, grittier texture compared to D3’s cartoonish visuals, and I daresay it looks a bit more realistic.

Incredible Shimmer and Effects

When it’s raining or snowing, you’ll notice a shimmer when you cross puddles on your path. Of course, it depends on the platform you’re playing on and the quality of the graphics you set it to. When pumped to the max, you have these gorgeous effects that you won’t want to look away from. Except when it comes to destroying grotesque creatures that explode with gore everywhere, which is when the queasy will want to turn their heads.

Stunning Sounds and Voice Acting

The Hollywood-class voice-acting is back, not only for NPCs but also for the characters you play as. Also, you have music playing in the different areas, while the attacks and monster grunts and screams are surreal. Play Diablo IV with headphones on, and you’re in for a real treat.

An Improved Camera View

One aspect of Diablo IV I want to praise is the improved camera view. It’s closer to the character now, giving you a better view of the action. If you’re playing two on a screen, the camera pans out if you run to different sides away from each other. It looks so much better than D3.

Diablo IV is Missing a Bestiary and Lore Book

Sadly, Diablo IV doesn’t have a Bestiary or Lore Book like D3 had. It’s one of the elements I really loved in the previous game and was hoping would carry through to D4. While you can search for these online by loyal fans, I hope Blizzard includes one in a future update.

Final Verdict: Is Diablo IV worth it?

Yes, buying Diablo IV is 100% worth it if you’re into dark fantasy action and gore. If you’re a fan of the franchise, you won’t want to miss out on this sequel at all. There are so many improvements, and now you have an open world to explore at your leisure while completing areas and quests. There’s so much to do with each class, I doubt you’ll become bored. It will be interesting to see what future seasons will bring to the table.

Where to Buy Diablo IV?

At the moment, you can buy Diablo IV on PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One,  and Microsoft Windows.

Check our Bookshop for More Fantasy Adventures

As you can tell, we’re rather fond of Diablo IV in this review. We’ve been with the series since the first one appeared on the PS1, and we’ve loved every game in the series. It’s not that we’re biased, but we genuinely enjoy the lore and world that Blizzard Entertainment created.

Before you leave, please give us some love and visit our online bookstore. We have some exciting fantasy novels to enjoy, such as our flagship dark fantasy trilogy, Celenic Earth Chronicles. We also provide game writing services if you want writers for a game like Diablo.