[REVIEW] Diablo IV Open Beta

 Diablo IV's open beta finished up this weekend, and what with it being open and all, I was fortunate enough to play it. I didn't get to play it as much as I wanted (that is to say, every waking moment this past weekend), but I definitely played enough to form some solid opinions on this early look into the game.

That being said, when the game finally does release (currently set to be on June 6, 2023), some things may have changed between what I say here and the final version. The fun of early access and betas!

I'll start this off by establishing that I didn't play either Diablo III or Diablo Immortal. I haven't played a Diablo game since Diablo II, which I had so much fun playing either solo or with friends back in the day. Despite not being fond of many of ActiBlizz's business practices, I thought I'd still be in a position to test out and see what I thought of this newest entry into the Diablo franchise. I can't speak to what may have changed since D3 or DI, but I can at least say whether or not I enjoyed what I played over the open beta weekend.

THE DAUGHTER OF HATRED ARISES

 The game starts with an interesting cutscene of a bunch of thieves accidentally awakening Lilith, known as the daughter of hatred, who apparently has beef with the angel Inarius. Lilith wants to take over the world, which lore states that she created, and there's a prophecy about how humanity will likely be destroyed in the cross-fire between the two great beings. So it's your job as a random adventurer who got sucked into the plot somehow, to stop Lilith before Inarius wakes up and gets cranky about her presence.

Now, that is a vast oversimplification of the game's lore, but it suffices for a quick introduction. You make your character, you get lost on your journey, and you find your way to a helpful mountain village where people aren't actually so much helpful as they are devoted to Lilith and very happy to kill you in her name. Being a person of honour and strength, once you realize what's going on, you agree to do your part to stop Lilith from growing too strong and probably bringing about the downfall of humanity.

The open beta could only take you so far into the story, as it had both a level cap and a story cap, so even if I'd played as much as humanly possible over the open beta weekend, I still wouldn't be able to bring you all a complete vision of the game in this review. I don't know how the story will go, what events will happen later on. But what I saw was enough to convince me that I would have a hell of a great time playing the full version of the game. The gameplay loop was satisfying, there were so many maps to explore and fill in, mini-dungeons with bonus challenges, side-quests that had me haring off in the opposite direction to my initial intended goal, all sorts! It seems like exactly the sort of game I could play for weeks without ever growing bored.

CHARACTER CREATION MAKES IT HAPPEN

 Unlike character creation in Diablo II, Diablo IV's character classes aren't gender-locked. (Again, can't speak to what was available in D3 and DI, as I didn't play them, so I don't know if this is a new thing or not.) There were 5 playable classes: Barbarian, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Rogue, and Druid. As expected, each of these classes have their own unique ways of being played, unique appearances, skill trees, and options within those skill trees. Each class also allows you to be either male or female, which is fantastic, because while I loved the appearance of Diablo II's sorcerer ladies, I also really like my hot male sorcerer, seen above.

His name is Ishraaq. I love his pale glowing eyes.

I only had time to play as Ishraaq, so I can't tell you how the other character classes play, but I really enjoyed my time as a hot sorcerer dude. Through the skill tree I could play with different elemental attacks, passive skills, refund all my ability points and respec with a new element if I wanted. I generally stuck with lightning powers, and that worked pretty well for me. I'd be interested to see what other builds could play out as, though, and the devs clearly thought about people wanting to play as basically every character type ever, because there are 10 character slots available. 10! That could let you play each class twice over, if you wanted, and that is a lot of playtime!

There's a reason I think I'd have a lot of fun playing the full version, and it largely comes down to this, honestly. While I don't like games with bloated playtime expectations, worlds that are huge but largely empty, with most side-quests boiling down to, "Go fetch me 15 random doodads," Diablo IV doesn't seem like it's going to be that sort of game. The side-quests I found were things like, "The master of the guard suddenly turned into a vampire; please go kill him before he kills loads of other people," or, "The ghost of my dead kid is haunting me; please make him stop." Things that feel appropriate to the world and the situation at hand, rather than just side-quests for side-quests' sake.

Plus, let's be honest: we all know that Diablo games are about finding fantastic rare loot. And side-quests and bonus dungeons are often the best way to accomplish that. You'll be running all over the place, all the time, and you'll be happy about it because you're getting little dopamine boosts so often when enemies drop weapons and armour and money, all for you to benefit from. It's a cycle I love, and the sort of thing that makes me want to keep playing.

OPTIONS GALORE!

In addition to the myriad options for character builds and appearances, Diablo IV boasts some settings that I'm really grateful for. Before I even got to make a character, I was presented with game settings. Do I want subtitles? How big do I want those subtitles? How about volume? Brightness? Colour-blindness settings? All sorts of standard and non-standard settings, and it's the non-standard settings like colour-blindness adjustments that I'm most thankful for. While I don't need those specific adjustments to play, other people might, and the fact that Diablo IV presents the settings to players before launching into the game and making people discover the hard way that they need to adjust things... It's appreciated. Personally, I've had it with games that throw me into a long cutscene in the beginning, telling me the game's background and story introduction, and subtitles aren't on by default, meaning I need to go into the settings and turn them on and then either restart the game or just carry on while knowing I may have missed some important stuff due to my crappy hearing.

This is what game accessibility is about. Making it so that people can enjoy the game as much as possible, in whatever ways they need.

Speaking of, yes, there are difficulty settings. The 2 that were in the beta basically amounted to Easy and Standard, and there was no snarky judgment about someone selecting easy mode, either. I picked that one to begin with, but quickly bumped it up because the game felt too easy for me personally. I was kicking the ass of everything I encountered without any real challenge, and while it was a power-trip, it wasn't a very satisfying one. So I changed it. And if that had ended up too hard for me, I could have changed it back. No need to make a different character, no need to replay previous quests, just a very simple, "Okay, you're playing on this difficulty, here's what that means, have fun."

You might also notice from the above screenshot that I was playing on my PS4. I admit I was a little hesitant at first, because sometimes games with a lot of skill options involve inputs like holding down X and R1 while swirling the left thumbstick around in a circle, and honestly, that sort of control scheme can fuck right off, because I shouldn't need to do 3 things at once in order to accomplish 1 since action. But thankfully, the controls were comfortable for me. Simple 1 button presses to use skills (sometimes with a cooldown, sometimes not), easy movement, nothing ridiculously complicated. I appreciate that consideration so much, and I wish other game devs would learn to simplify control schemes like this, because again, accessibility is about making it so that people can enjoy the game as much as possible, however they need to.

The harder you make it for people to enjoy your game, the fewer people play and enjoy your game.

But Diablo IV didn't fall into this trap, and that was one reason I enjoyed playing it so much. Simple controls that could be adapted as I saw fit, nothing overly complicated, just good old-fashioned demon-killing fun.

NO OFFLINE OPTION?

There is no offline single-player option. Or at least, there wasn't for the open beta. I don't know if there'll be one for the final release. I can understand why there might not have been one for the beta, since testing server load is a key aspect of testing. Heck, the first day, I had to wait over half an hour to log in. Day 2, they seem to have recognized that they needed more servers for people, and the wait time was cut down to about a minute. This is fantastic, since it means they recognized a problem, fixed it, and we all could have fun.

But. Console players typically need to purchase additional access to online play. Not always (Playstation allows free online access for games that are also free, from what I've seen), but Diablo IV will not be a free game. And I don't know if, when the game releases properly, console players will still be able to play the game without XBox Live or Playstation Plus. If there's no offline single-player and consoles require the purchase of an additional service, that might lock some potential players out of playing a game that, to be frank, does not need to be an online-only game.

Did I run into other players while I played? Yes. Did they help out in battle sometimes? Also yes. Did I want them to? ...No, not really. I wanted to play the game and challenge myself. I don't mind games having online components to them, but I appreciate the choice to either use or not use online components as I see fit. I enjoyed playing Diablo II with friends back in the day, but if I didn't want to risk encountering random players who might bother me, I just played offline. That was an option for me.

I'm not sure it will be an option anymore. And if it's not an option, and if the final game involves also having to buy online console services just to play it, then unfortunately, I just won't be playing it.

And unfortunately, it looks like that will be the case. Everything I can find suggests that online play will be required and that I'll need to pay extra for that. Unfortunately, that's also just kind of my best guess, because I would have expected the same problem this past weekend, only that's not what I experienced. And the XBox store page says that couch co-op will be a thing, so why make a game online only if you can also play couch co-op? Why not make an offline mode?

So there's a very real chance that while the game looks fantastic and plays wonderfully and is absolutely a game I would play for uncounted hours, I just... won't actually be able to do that. Because they're not giving players an offline option.

There's no need to have it be 100% online. And yet it seems like that's what they're doing.

Which, honestly, is kind of crap. So many accessibility options that are inviting to players, while also making it hostile to console players who don't have the money to spend on extra services or who don't have a strong and stable enough Internet connection.

 There's so much to love about Diablo IV, but sadly, the open beta weekend might have been my only chance to experience any of it. Lack of offline accessibility means the game automatically dates itself - nobody will be playing this 10 years down the road, because likely the servers will have shut down. By contrast, I can still install Diablo II -- which released nearly 23 years ago -- on my PC, and play it just fine right now. 

I want to experience the rest of what the game has to offer. The story was intriguing, the world-building fantastic. The options for character builds and appearances was welcome, the hunt for epic loot was such a delightful throwback to the old days that I fell right into old comfortable patterns again.Diablo IV seems like everything I loved about Diablo II, only scaled up and redone for the modern age.

But the lack of offline options means that despite all the praise I can heap on it, the balance is still tipped over in the direction of, "Why did I even bother?" I just got excited to play a game that I can't play again, because they teased access that I don't actually have.

Is Diablo IV worth playing? It seems like it really is... provided you already have the ability to play it online. For PC, this isn't going to be a problem for most people. (Except those without stable Internet connections, and again, if the game doesn't need to be online, stop making online-only games.) For those who use consoles without XBox Live or Playstation Plus, don't even bother looking into it. You'll likely just find yourself wanting to play a game that doesn't actually want you to play it. It's fantastic if you already have access, and a slap in the face if you don't.