Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred is coming to Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. After roughly 25 hours going through every nook and cranny, I’m disappointed. I love the Diablo series, and this expansion’s first half felt amazing. Weird pacing and a maddening cliffhanger ending soured what was otherwise a solid experience. This review will be story-spoiler-free as can be, but let’s get into the good and the bad.
Spiritborn
The biggest, and best addition to Vessel of Hatred is the new Spiritborn class. Utilizing the power of the Gorilla, Eagle, Jaguar, and Centipede I found myself in love with two of the main specs and in deep like with the others. I’m a Centipede main, poisoning up all the demonic boys and girls who dare get in my path. Here is the base focus of each spec:
- Gorilla: Big, tankish brute. Should be great for parties as a damage soak.
- Jaguar: Fast and fiery, you’ll do a lot of close range aoe damage with decent survivability
- Eagle: A ranged-lightning dealer with a few feathery aoe’s.
- Centipede: You poison any and everything, with the ability to heal with every right click.
As this review build took place on a special server made for the nearly two weeks we had to play the game I was underpowered. None of us reviewing the title had our extra potion slots and skill points from our main accounts, nor the incentive to truly grind away as these characters and accounts are now wiped from existence forever.
Vigor
The Spiritborn works off the Vigor resource, which by default is gained in small amounts with every basic attack. There will be a lot of theory crafting and min-maxing achieved post-launch as people grind every aspect, and talent point, and put their hundreds of paragon points to good use.
As is in my up to hard difficulty review I found the Spiritborn to be a ferociously fast and fun class to use. I could easily see maining one during the Season of Hatred in the main game. I found the Jaguar and the Centipede to be my strongest classes during the campaign, though this was with an entirely new account and no meta-leveling bonuses.
The class-based specialization lets you get a bonus per each animal type. You can choose two different ones or you can double up said bonus if you’re going all out with them. Choosing an aspect makes all of your moves match which allows for a large number of build setups.
I dabbled with the original classes and didn’t notice too many differences. A new paragon board for each is something I couldn’t dream of seeing during the review process. The majority of the new aspects in the game are also for the Spiritborn, especially all of those in the new area.
Nahantu
The new area on the map is called Nahantu. It’s in the southwest section and fits naturally as a new jungle/swamp zone. There is nothing too memorable about it looks-wise. It is your typical mixture of native stone architecture with lots of green color throughout most of it and a lot of water.
Some areas are full-on gross-out Diablo IV specials as the story dictates that life on Sanctuary must be horrific for everyone, eventually. You are in Nahantu attempting to chase down Neyrell, who left with Mephisto’s soul stone at the end of Diablo IV.
For those of you hoping to see Lorath, I have bad news. After voicing the opening cutscene I didn’t see much of him, with new characters filling in the void. There is a new villain, created entirely it seems for this campaign as he was a “faceless knight” during the first game’s period. He’s a dick, boring, and seemingly overpowered for just being another guy.
The story itself started well. The first third of my time playing it I was enthralled, loving every minute of it. Slowly that started to unravel and as I hit the midway point it was a quick spiral into needlessly quick plot development and a wholly unsatisfying ending.
Story Highes and Lows
The story goes into some wild and interesting places, only to quickly snuff out those threads in a way meant to set future seasons and expansions. For a $40 product, there is ‘enough’ gameplay here, I just didn’t feel satisfied with the story. If you don’t give a damn and just want to click monsters to death it won’t matter, for me it hurt the overall experience immensely.
There are a few things that happened early on that made my “badass hero of sanctuary” feel like an average Joe. It didn’t make sense in the grand scheme of Diablo IV’s story that a few events could happen thanks to the power of cutscenes.
Time and time again you’ll work through areas killing thousands of enemies only to have all of your hard work mean nothing because of a cutscene. It was maddening by the end when I could see exactly where things were going but had no agency to stop it. The pacing of events, motivations, and outcomes felt unearned. It all feels like a setup, which is what some seasons should be for and not a paid expansion.
What it adds to the base game
A favorite new feature for a solo player like myself is the new mercenaries. There are four to choose from:
- Veryana: A melee-focused cannibalistic barbarian
- Aldkin: A half-demon mage who is a child, focuses on spell-casting
- Subo: A trap-laying archer who wields a bow in combat
- Rahier: A shield-wielding giant of a man who loves slamming into things at close range
The mercenary system is great. Letting you have a helper who can deal decent damage when alone. There is also a 2nd option, having another companion set as your specific call-in. Say you use your ultimate ability, and then you can have a person who isn’t your active helper come in and make a specific move.
You’ll have to level up your relationship with each mercenary to get skill points and other rewards. It’s another carrot-on-a-stick that Diablo IV has greatly excelled at since its launch. There are a handful of new dungeons that offer up Spiritborn aspects for your codex as well as a PVE co-op activity that I was unable to test during the review period. Runewords are a fun addition. Letting you slot in various class abilities, even on those that can’t normally use them, via slots on characters’ gear in the same way you slot gems in.
Wrapping Things Up
Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred has a great start, mediocre middle, and frustrating ending. The Spiritborn class is a fantastic addition, along with the new Mercenary system. At $40 if you’re in it for the story you may come out as frustrated as I am, but if gameplay is all you care about then there’s a lot to love.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
Played on
Xbox Series X, PC
PROS
- Spiritborn Class
- Mercenaries
- Runeword System
CONS
- Pacing Issues
- Story Disappointments
This reminds me I need to finish the base game, sorry about the story. But as an ESO player I understand how you feel, since Zos has done so in the past.