Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred review

Diablo 4 was one of my favorite games last year, so I had high hopes for Vessel of Hatred, the first expansion to developer Blizzard's demonic ARPG. Luckily, this action-packed crusade through the muck and swamp of Nahantu's forests and swamps is exactly what the plague doctor ordered, even if there's not as much meat on the bones as I'd hoped. In fact, the shortened campaign, unfinished story, and modest amount of endgame content make this expansion feel more like a prologue in some ways. But the quality of life improvements, the meta changes, the first raid activity, and the awesome new character class are all so damn good that I'll happily continue mining XP and grabbing shiny loot for several hundred more hours.

“Vessel of Hatred” picks up directly from the insane cliffhanger that the base campaign gave us: The Daughter of Hatred is now dead, and a young adventurer has taken a Soul Stone containing one of the most wanted demons in heaven: Mephisto. Throughout this roughly six-hour story, you'll watch the dominoes fall as the manifestation of pure evil draws ever closer to a seemingly inevitable resurrection… but things come to an end long before they reach any climax, leaving us with one more Cliffhanger returns (one that we'll apparently be stuck with for some time). This makes the campaign the weakest part of the expansion, and although we didn't like the lore, characters and some major plot developments Do are all extremely convincing, there are simply too few of them and they hardly pay off.

Luckily, the things you actually do during and after the story snippets we're served up are as exciting as ever in Diablo 4. Almost everything – from the changes to the leveling and loot system to the added dungeons and side quests – is beyond fantastic. Runewords, a returning feature that lets you add special enchantments to your gear, add another layer to the buildcrafting I love, charging through the Kurast Undercity, a time attack dungeon that's infinitely replayable and great for farming of endgame loot that can easily be devoured my evenings. Not every task hits the mark, like the seasonal Realmwalker activity where you slowly follow a big, dumb monster while waiting for it to reach its final destination before you can finally kill it, but the hacking and Cutting through the captivating Nahantu region of The Sanctuary, anchored in the southern portion of the map, is rarely dull.

I particularly like the changes to the level system, which is now limited to 60 instead of 100 and then offers you 300 levels of extra levels that you can invest in incredibly complex Paragon advantage trees. The result of this shortened progression is that you get to the endgame much sooner, which is very handy when creating new characters every season. You can spend more time creating endgame builds as you progress through higher world difficulties, earning and upgrading increasingly powerful loot along the way. While the previous Diablo 4 tier-up journey had occasional lags, this optimized version feels good up to level 300, and I'm much more inclined to repeat this step with multiple characters and across multiple seasons – and that is so likely it will dramatically improve my long-term commitment to fighting the hordes of Hell.

My favorite additional mechanic is the mercenary system, which allows you to recruit NPC heroes to accompany you on your adventures. This allows single players to even the odds a bit with co-op groups by accompanying one or two computer-controlled friends on adventures, including Subo, the long-range bounty hunter who provides support with his bow, and Aldkin, a demon child who uses his demonic powers uses to send your enemies into the shadow realm. Not only do these loyal companions each have their own introductory quests where you learn about their history, but the longer you spend time with them, the more XP they earn to unlock new abilities and other rewards.

But the most significant innovation to dive into is the wonderfully customizable character class: the Spiritborn. After spending almost all of my time expanding this class, it has quickly become one of my favorites. This tribalistic magical warrior relies on his connection to guardian spirits, spirit-like animals that grant him god-like power, each with their own memorable, unique style and set of strengths and weaknesses. The Gorilla Spirit is all about turning you into an invulnerable tank and then punishing your enemies for daring to attack you with thorns, while the wonderfully offensive Jaguar turns you into a lightning-fast, melee-wielding DPS machine transformed (which is quite soft). The Eagle is all about mobility and allows you to teleport around the map and get incredibly hard to hit, while my personal favorite, the Centipede, allows you to cover large areas with poison and equip yourself with life-stealing abilities to make it almost invulnerable.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred gameplay screenshots