18 June,2023 09:25 AM IST | Mumbai | Jaison Lewis
Diablo IV
Diablo IV has been in the making for a while now; it was showcased in 2019 for the first time. The game pretty much has a formula. It starts with one main character that you control, customise and upgrade. Add to a mix the story related to the devil and your quest to defeat the so-called king of darkness. Labyrinths and huge maps to explore. Hordes of enemies come at you simultaneously, eventually leading to a boss. Not to mention tonnes of loot.
This has worked for the franchise for all three of the previous iterations, and for the pioneers of the Action RPG genre, Diablo has always managed to be successful. With the new game, Blizzard has gone with the same basic formula. Though, this time, a few more additions and tweaks make it better than its predecessors in many ways while keeping all the parts that work from the previous versions.
The main change in the game is the introduction of Lilith as a villain. Diablo IV has more than the usual number of cutscenes, and it feels like the developers have taken a genuine interest in the story this time. It isn't an award-winning storyline, but it offers something to tie in the quests and the game's various components. More than could have been said of the previous version of the game.
There is also a switch to open-world online gameplay. The world is littered with monsters that are relatively easier to handle than the ones we see in the dungeons. It offers a great way to level up and gather resources.
The towns and the ability to portal back to them from anywhere in the game also offer a chance to strategise your gameplay. Most of this easy gameplay is on the lowest difficulty setting. You can choose to change your difficulty at any point in the game. Daiblo is pretty balanced, and there is a good chance of death if you mindlessly play the game, even at the lowest setting. Every time you die, the durability of your weapon goes down, die enough, and you might lose your favourite gear.
The open world is crazy huge, and exploring all of it in one go is almost impossible. The map also has layers with underground dungeons, mines and even hideouts, all of which can be explored and cleared. There is also almost always a lair boss you must defeat. Depending on your level, these lair bosses can be easy or extremely challenging, especially if you are going it solo. The good thing is Diablo doesn't penalise solo play. You can help other players around you kill demons, but you have your own loot from the endeavour and can't kill other players.
If you want to go all out and play proper multiplayer. You can team up with friends, form clans and explore more dangerous dungeons together, taking town larger boss monsters. It is a lot of fun to play co-op. Since this is an online multiplayer game, there is a component of money involved, and it is mostly in terms of better gear. This doesn't mean the game is completely skewed towards extracting your money. You can play Diablo IV without spending and still progress in the game at a nice pace. There is plenty of loot and gear available as well. Greed is probably the only reason you would want to spend.
However, this is an online multiplayer game, and the server rules can be changed anytime at the discretion of the developers. This means if they decide a year or even six months down the line that people need to pay to progress in the game, they could skew the spawn and monster rates to make it extremely hard for a player who is not willing to pay for gear. This is, however, hypothetical. For now, the game is very fair in its approach, and if they keep it that way, I can guarantee that their user base will only grow with time.
The only thing you need to know about Diablo IV is its ability to warp. You can try and ration one to two hours for game time with Diablo 4, but before you know it's the next day, your morning alarm is blaring, and you feel dehydrated and hungry. It is a devilishly addictive game, and that is its selling point. I have sunk several days into this game, and there is still so much more to do. Needless to say, this game will be on my playlist for a while.
Overall, I can't recommend Diablo enough. It is genuinely a great game, and even though it is the same as the previous games in the series, it has added enough changes to make the gameplay shine. If you don't mind that it's a game that is constantly connected to a server and can't be played offline, I would say go for it.
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PIC COURTESY/ STEVE ZYLIUS; UCI
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