Diablo IV open beta thoughts

[Shinobi-san]

A handful of glitches due to always online requirement, but nothing too bad. I also did not have any waiting times or issues logging in.

The game feels one step in the direction of Diablo 2 and away from Diablo 3. But in some aspects its also gone perhaps more in the D3 direction.

Atmosphere, art style, story, sound, gameplay, cinematic cutscenes all positives for me. I also find the characters to be just about memorable (not on the level of D2 though).

The area design can sometimes come across as generic especially when you not in a proper dungeon or progressing the story. I find that the mobs may as well all be the same, as you very rarely have to adapt to a situation created by specific mob types etc. In D2 you will remember that you need to kill the shaman leader first otherwise the minions just keep spawning, etc. The only time I actually had to even remotely think about my character/build or the enemy was when I hit the final beta boss.

A major issue I have is the level scaling of mobs, which many people have raised. This leads to an underwhelming leveling experience, as you never really feel like your skills are progressing as they should. Rather you find that you waiting for a better item to drop to have meaningful growth. I'm super keen to see how this will play out...I hope it wont kill the game though.

Some of the MMO type aspects of the game I actually really liked, like the seamingly random events in the open areas, where sometimes you can team up with randoms to complete an objective. These can be quite intense!

Overall I really enjoyed it and considering I played this on PS5 (sadly) thats saying something!