It certainly seemed like a level beyond anything else I’d seen so far, even if it wasn’t a true “world boss,” which spawn at set times and need to be mobbed by loads of players. The most impressive thing I did was an elaborate “Stronghold” I randomly found out in the world that culminated in the toughest boss fight I’ve seen in the game yet. Larger dungeons, that are among the most interesting areas in the game so far, and where I’ve found nearly all my legendaries. Tiny cellars with small encounters and rewards. Public events where you will come across random other players already engaged in them.

But you can see some of the DNA here, particularly with achievements tied to exploration of areas in the game that reward players for doing everything in a given zone. In terms of how Diablo 4 has evolved from past games, I am getting a whole lot of Lost Ark vibes here, the Korean, Diablo-ish MMO that Amazon recently brought to the US, but one laden with I would argue just…too much stuff and too many potentially pay-to-win elements.

If I wanted, I could be doing dagger-based melee antics instead, and while I know you can respec, I haven’t looked into that process yet. My current build is setting a poison trap down, double slash dashing through enemies caught in it, then unleashing arrows on the survivors. Also, they really killed it with character customization: When my game last crashed I was in the middle of some sort of Rogue-specific specialization quest that seems somewhat interesting in terms of how it will modify my potential build. It’s always hard to judge Diablo gameplay in the very early stages before you have many skills and good loot, but at level 15 (I’d probably be beta max at 25 right now without all the server errors), I’ve unlocked a good amount of Rogue skills, who plays like an expected mix of the original Rogue class and D3’s Demon Hunter, and have even gotten a few legendary drops, indicating perhaps D4 won’t be as stingy with those as D3 was at launch (I remember going 70 hours before my first Legendary drop in D3, an unusable quiver for my Barbarian). But the tone here is on point, without question.

That has immediately changed, albeit admittedly, things do start getting into more traditional territory with less interesting sidequests and main storyline progression with fewer creepy cutscenes. For as many hours as I’ve sunk into the Diablo franchise, I have never much cared for the story.

Diablo 4 demo line