News | Fourth Diablo 4 season is called Loot Reborn
The fourth season of Diablo 4, called Loot Reborn, will start on May 14.
In an extensive blog post, Blizzard tells more about what players can expect. In addition to temporary seasonal content, the season will also make permanent major changes to the game. As a result, the new season not only adapts the Seasonal Realm, but also the Eternal Realm.
As the title of the season indicates, there is a major focus on loot. How this loot is unlocked, functions and influences the levels of players is being overhauled.
Season 4: Loot Reborn is coming May 14th.
— Diablo (@Diablo) April 30, 2024
⚒️ New Itemization Systems
🔥 Helltide Changes
📜 And much more
Read more about #DiabloIV's biggest gameplay update yet: https://t.co/QaQsF9S4FU pic.twitter.com/TSBSwnBs5x
According to Blizzard, it will be easy to see at a glance how good loot is. “We have moved the complexity and customization of the loot to our new crafting systems, Tempering and Masterworking.” Tempering is a new crafting system for attaching affixes to items. With Masterworking, items can be upgraded by twelve ranks via existing affixes.
Furthermore, Helltide events will be available across all World Tiers and there will be a new Threat Level that increases as players defeat enemies. Once they reach Threat Level 3, players will face an “immensely powerful agent of Hell” called Hellborn. Also new is a new endgame challenge called The Pit, which can be done by up to four players simultaneously once enough Runeshards have been collected. In The Pit, players must defeat a predetermined number of monsters and a boss within a time limit, which will yield valuable Masterworking materials. The Pit has a total of two hundred difficulty levels.
The fourth season of Diablo 4 starts on May 14 at 7:00 PM.
News | Diablo 4 season two revealed
Blizzard showed a trailer for the upcoming second season of Diablo 4 during the Gamescom Opening Night Live show.
The second season is called Season of Blood and will be released on October 17. Players fight alongside the computer-controlled Eris, a skilled vampire hunter voiced by Eternals actress Gemma Chan. Players can expect five endgame bosses, as well as unlock vampire powers as they complete new missions.
Blizzard’s Rod Fergusson announced on stage at the Gamescom show that there are now twelve million Diablo 4 players. In addition, he promises that new content will be added to the game for years to come.
Diablo 4 is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One and PC.
News | Diablo 4's first season begins on July 20
The first season of Diablo 4 will start on July 20, Blizzard announced yesterday.
It was already known that the first season would start sometime later this month and that Blizzard would announce the first details yesterday.
The first season is called Season of the Malignant and, as the name implies, pits players against more powerful Malignant enemies. By defeating them, players gain access to the hearts of these enemies, which can be used to craft powerful items called Caged Hearts that can add additional effects to gear. Blizzard likens it to Legendary powers that can bring “new, crazy, and broken builds.” There are a total of 32 Malignant powers.
The first season should also add a new questline. According to Blizzard, it is a “side story” to the main story of the game. As mentioned before, players must first have completed the game’s campaign in order to participate. So is the Malignant gameplay. The seasonal battle pass can also only be used with a new character created specifically for the season.
Finally, Diablo 4 is receiving a patch today that will allow Unique items to be found in Helltide chests. This should make it easier for players to unlock these hard-to-find items. Blizzard also announced a completely new class for the mobile game Diablo Immortal, the Blood Knight. Diablo Immortal is not playable in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Diablo 4 is now available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One and PC.
Review | Diablo IV
The first time I heard the sound, I knew I was in trouble. You know it, that swishing sound in Diablo when you open a chest and the loot flies through the air. A sound full of possibilities, endless possibilities. What could i get next, how could I improve, how could I become better?
I hadn’t touched Diablo in a few years, but when I heard that sound in Diablo 4, I knew it: the game immediately got me all over again. Diablo can motivate you like no other to keep playing in order to assemble ever better equipment, unlock ever better skills and tackle and hopefully defeat increasingly difficult bosses. This fourth part further hones that into an irresistible gameplay loop.
It’s a delicious feast of an endless stream of enemies and interesting skills to unleash on them. Diablo may sometimes feel like mindless clicking, but especially on higher difficulties you really need tactics. Especially if you play with several people at the same time, you can conjure up the entire screen with whirlwinds, fireballs, skeletons or landslides.
You start your journey by choosing one of the five available classes. Whether you go for the Barbarian, Druid, Rogue, Necromancer or Sorcerer, the skill tree allows you to completely adapt your character to your own playing style. The choice between these skills is better than ever because it offers a lot of flexibility without giving you too much freedom.
I myself chose the Necromancer, which immediately appeals to me. With a simple click you conjure up an army of skeletons at your feet that do what you want, attack whoever you want. From a distance I hurl bonespikes at the enemy and let my undead hordes finish the job. At later levels you can summon even bigger undead creatures including a golem.
Casting through the hordes of monsters with my karate was an immense pleasure. What makes it even more fun is that for each of the above skills I also had three or four other choices. For example, maybe you don’t want hordes of undead minions around you, but rather solve it alone. Or maybe you prefer to work with blood magic, kill your enemies and heal yourself in one blow. Each class is very well put together in that way, with at least four or five workable builds to go for.
Each choice also feels much more important. In Diablo 3 you could switch skills at any time, but in part 4 that comes with a price tag. In the beginning you don’t have to pay that much gold to ‘respec’ a skill and make a different choice, but later on it will cost a considerable amount of money. So you don’t have to be afraid of a wrong choice during the first levels, but you do have to make a clear decision in the end.
That may seem restrictive compared to the previous part, but it makes you feel much more connected to your character and his or her skills. You can also no longer turn off all your AoE skills just before a final boss, so you really have to make a balanced build. It’s a perfect balance between the freedom to make a wrong choice and the coercive hand to come up with a good tactic yourself.
The large amount of loot has also been improved in a way that was not obvious. Diablo 3 was packed with sets of awesome weapons and armor that you could combine for extra power. This seemed really cool, but also had a major drawback: some sets were clearly the very best, so most players only wanted those sets. That doesn’t offer much flexibility.
Diablo 4 doesn’t choose to make equipment even cooler and stronger, but instead scales back and makes it more flexible. You can improve almost anything you find at a blacksmith shop, change the properties of each piece of equipment, or even turn rare items into legendary pieces of equipment with special abilities of your choice. So the choice is no longer just: is this new weapon better or worse than what I’m using now? But also: can I make this new weapon even better, so that it is still useful? Only at the higher difficulty levels do you now encounter unique objects that offer some extra power, and even those often have limitations, so that the ‘ultimate’ build cannot be simply sketched out.
A change that immediately catches the eye is the dark style of this latest part. Some fans were shocked by the colorful environments in Diablo 3, although I was not one of them. I was charmed by the style, something different from the always so dark worlds of Diablo.
The game is beautiful and the new style often comes into its own. Environments are full of details, which can often be broken. The lighting in particular comes into its own, with lanterns swaying in the wind and bathing the dark streets in a wavering light.
However, the gothic style covers the entire game with a heavy blanket of dullness, which also makes everything feel a bit the same. In any case, the environments are not very creative and it mainly seems to be a list of hangouts for goths: a dark lawn, dark cave, dark desert, dark snow field, a castle that is on fire, but is still dark. I was never stimulated by anything new. They are mainly places that we have also seen in previous Diablos.
The story isn’t very impressive either. A bunch of fools summon Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, who has a sinister plan to become more powerful than ever. You mainly follow her for the rest of the game, so that you never really meet her and are always too late to intervene. You especially get into trouble with the aftermath of her plans and the monsters she has summoned.
Normally I’d say if you’re playing Diablo for the story, you’re doing it wrong. But part four puts extra emphasis on it, with many more cutscenes and dialogues. That’s quite nicely done, with some emotional moments, but the game’s engine can’t really handle it. The camera is made to hover over the action, not to zoom in on someone’s face.
As a result, some videos are quite ugly. In any case, they are in stark contrast to the game’s CGI intro, which is so beautiful that it could have been shown in the cinema. There are a lot of cutscenes that have clearly been given more attention, but in normal conversation characters are sometimes wooden and environments suddenly much uglier up close.
The other big change: Diablo 4 is an online game. That works out differently, and depends a bit on your gaming taste. In any case, we do not yet know how well the servers will hold up, but that will in any case be fine in the longer term. A bigger downside is that the game cannot be paused. That’s quite annoying if you’re just busy in a dungeon and the doorbell rings, or your cat pukes on the carpet. Since you can be attacked at any time, only in villages do you feel safe enough to go to the toilet.
On the positive side, the open world feels much more social as a result. Everywhere you see other players walking around in villages, or you meet them at one of the random events on the map. It feels good to go into battle together, overcome a tough challenge and then choose your own path again. Although of course you can always become friends or join each other’s clan.
Diablo 4 is already a pleasure on your own, but especially with multiple players in a group of up to four, the game really comes into its own. The interplay between the different classes and the effects of all those different skills racing across the screen: it’s a pleasure to watch and to control.
Diablo 4 is a gigantic game, with more elements than we can describe in one review. The best part is how the game seems to find a solution for all the little problems that could ruin your gaming experience.
In addition to the aforementioned smart things about loot and respecting builds, for example, it does its best to make the open world manageable. Everywhere you will find dungeons, side missions and cellars full of monsters, but of course you don’t have to go through everything. However, optional dungeons grant Legendary abilities that you can craft on your equipment. Fortunately, you can see on the map which skill you find in which dungeon, so that you don’t waste hours in dungeons only to get skills that you can’t use with your class.
At the same time, the game knows how to motivate you to spend more time in the open game world. Each area discovered, mission or dungeon completed fills a reward meter, unlocking crucial items for that region of the world map. Consider, for example, extra skill points or more XP, but also an extra health bottle that you always carry with you. This way you are constantly encouraged to stray from the path and visit the optional villages, characters and dungeons.
The game is full of these kinds of elements. Just when you get the feeling that the open world is getting very big and difficult to navigate, you get a horse at your disposal to race through it a bit faster. You can put a pin on your map and the fastest route to get there will automatically be shown on your minimap. Anyway, you can teleport to any village you’ve been to at any time, sell your inventory and then go back to where you left off. These are all elements that reduce the friction of this sometimes overwhelming game and make it endlessly playable.
Of course a game like Diablo 4 is difficult to review. I have now put in a decent amount of hours and have only just got a taste of the game, in which you always complete new dungeons and other challenges at higher levels of difficulty. I have seen a solid basis there to want to continue playing the game for dozens of hours, but my playing time is certainly too little to know whether this will remain fun and challenging for hundreds of hours, let alone whether all classes will reach level 100 in their ultimate form be well balanced. Also, the first season doesn’t start until July, so I can’t tell you if the upcoming Battle Pass with cosmetic items will ruin the gameplay.
What I do know is that Diablo 4 lays an unprecedentedly good foundation that fans can use again in the coming years. The game seems even better balanced, loot has been cleverly adjusted and your heroes and gear feel more personal as you have to think more about your build.
Score:
9,0
+ Weighty choices in character development
+ Open game world that rewards curiosity
+ Loot system feels well balanced
– Story and environments are a bit disappointing
– Game cannot be paused
News | First player reaches level 100 in Diablo 4
Someone has already managed to reach the maximum level in Diablo 4 which is level 100.
The game will only be officially released this Tuesday, but has been playable since last Friday for people who bought a special edition. Since then, streamer Rob2628 has managed to reach the maximum level 100. Soon after, other gamers also joined him.
Blizzard previously indicated that it would take around 150 hours to reach this maximum level.
Blizzard is also holding a competition for people who reach level 100 on the Hardcore mode. If your character dies in this difficult mode, he will also remain dead and you will have to start all over again. The first thousand players to achieve this will have their name engraved on a statue in the game. As far as we know, no one has succeeded yet.
News | Blizzard releases Diablo 4 live action trailer
A new live action trailer for Diablo 4 has been released.
The trailer features a wide variety of environments and action-packed scenes. Several people ask for the help of the player.
Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One. The game features cross-play and cross-progression. People who buy a special edition of the game can already get started with the game from June 2.
News | Blizzard reveals system requirements for Diablo 4
Blizzard has revealed the system requirements for the final version of Diablo 4 on PC.
Blizzard says that Diablo 4 will run on systems that are less powerful than the recommended specifications, but that this can “significantly reduce the gaming experience”.
Minimum system requirements, game running in 1080p native / 720p render, low graphics settings, 30 fps:
OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8350
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 280
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband
Medium system requirements , game runs in 1080p, medium graphics settings, 60 fps:
OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5-4670K or AMD Ryzen 1300X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 470
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband
High system requirements, game runs in 1080p, high graphics settings, 60 fps:
OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 2700X
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband
Ultra system requirements, game runs in 4k, ultra graphics settings, 60 fps:
OS: 64-bit Windows 10 version 1909 or newer
Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
Memory: 32 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series to fully support DLSS3 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: SSD with 90 GB of free hard disk space
Internet: broadband
The above specs also apply to Server Slam, the upcoming third beta running May 12-14. Everyone can then try the game. Blizzard prefers to see as many players as possible to test whether the servers can handle it. The beta starts on May 12 at 9:00 PM Dutch time and ends on May 14 at 9:00 PM.
News | Diablo 4 trailer showcases the druid class
A new short trailer for Diablo 4 zooms in on the druid class.
The video shows the druid wielding various magical powers, including whirlwinds and wolves. In addition, he can turn into a ferocious beast himself.
Last week, Blizzard announced that it will host a third beta weekend, dubbed the “Server Slam,” from May 12-14. Anyone on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One can then try the game. Blizzard prefers to see as many players as possible to test whether the servers can handle it. The beta starts on May 12 at 9:00 PM Dutch time and ends on May 14 at 9:00 PM.
Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One, although pre-orders will get access four days early.
News | Diablo 4 trailer highlights the Sorcerer class
A new Diablo 4 video revolves around the game's Sorcerer class.
Controlling the natural elements, the Sorcerer uses powerful fire, lightning, and ice attacks in battle. They are therefore the focus of the trailer below.
Blizzard will be broadcasting a new Developer Update live stream this Thursday at 8:00 PM Dutch time. It takes a closer look at the endgame content and changes that will be made after the beta. The live stream can also be viewed via YouTube.
Diablo 4 will be released on June 6 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One, although pre-orders will get access four days early.
News | The endgame content from Diablo 4 highlighted
Blizzard has released a developer diary for Diablo 4 detailing the endgame content in the game.
Blizzard wants to let players decide for themselves how they progress in the endgame. After completing the story, you will gain access to a Capstone Dungeon. By playing it, you unlock the next world tier. This raises one level, which makes the enemies stronger, but also yields bigger rewards. It is up to people themselves whether they want to do this.
In addition to the normal skill trees, one can also further develop his character with the Paragon system. Here one can apply even more specific customization to the character and determine the direction of endgame upgrades. Related to that is the Codex of Power, where players can power up Aspects earned in dungeons. This makes items found in the game world more powerful in the form of Legendary items.
One can also return to previously completed dungeons and modify them with Sigil. That changes the style and intensity of a dungeon. Nightmare Dungeons are more challenging, have extra quests and contain mods called Affixes. As an example, the Hellgate Affix is given, which opens portals to hell in the dungeon from which monsters from other regions come. The game contains more than one hundred and twenty dungeons, and each dungeon can turn into a Nightmare Dungeon.
There is also plenty to experience in the overarching world of Diablo 4 during the endgame. For example, areas called Helltides appear, in which monsters are more difficult to defeat and new environmental effects occur, for example the falling of meteorites. Through a location called the Tree of Whispers, one can hunt various monsters for bounties. This can be performed alone or with other players.
Diablo 4 is out on June 6 on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One. An Xbox Series bundle will also be available. A beta was recently held.