Try as I might, Diablo 4’s endgame always remains just out of reach. My first run through the main chunk of the game, with a doomed, soon to be self-detonated Necromancer, came to an end just as Diablo 4’s story did, before I hit the enforced reset before launch. My second, a wild sprint to still-not-quite-the-finish with a new Barbarian, remains ongoing. As you might’ve already seen, we delayed our review in part because we hadn’t seen enough of Diablo 4 – but also because we hadn’t seen the shop, or how its servers might fare when millions descend on it at once.
Diablo 4 reviewDeveloper: BlizzardPublisher: BlizzardPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC (Battle.net), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.
We know it’s worked out surprisingly well in terms of stability – some way better than Diablo 3 infamously did, although you’d hope for that – and we know the shop has remained true to developer Blizzard’s word. You can only buy cosmetics there, nothing that impacts gameplay. They are very expensive cosmetics – 10 quid horse armour feels like a twisted reference to where it all began – but they are just cosmetics. The first of Diablo’s seasons, and its first battle pass, remains over a month away though, and that’s a little too long for us to get to.
To talk straight down the lens for a second then, here’s the plan. We’re aiming to follow up on Diablo 4’s endgame in proper depth further down the line. For now, I’ll focus on what I’ve seen already. Call this a campaign review if you like – the Diablo 4 that presents itself to you after however many dozens of hours is almost a game of its own, and so best we do that game justice on its own terms later on.
But what to make of the Diablo 4 that’s just Diablo 4? Play this game for dozens of hours and you’ll be left with one overwhelming sensation: that soon, really soon, any minute now, it might get really good. And that what’s good now comes with a lingering sense of compromise.