Name: A hell of a mess
Item: Diablo IV
Rating: 6
Author: ayad

I eagerly awaited for the release of this game, hoping for a return to the franchise's glory days. The initial couple of weeks of gameplay were promising, but over the course of more than 80 hours, I witnessed a rollercoaster of experiences. Here are the pros and cons:

**Positives:**

- The main story is pretty good and kept me engaged. I liked it and it's one of the good things about this game.
- Combat is both satisfying and immersive, with lots of different abilities for each class.
- You can customize your character's appearance a lot, which is cool.  It's much more extensive compared to the old games.
- The open world is huge and looks amazing, it maybe the best-looking action RPG to date.
- Playing with friends on consoles in co-op mode is a blast and easy to do.

**Negatives:**

- The inventory and stash system is a mess, and it's difficult to keep track of your items. The implementation of the stash, which accesses every player's items even if you don't interact with them, is strange and it's just bad design.
- The view is too zoomed in, making it hard to see everything clearly, which takes away from the beauty of the game.
- There aren't enough different types of enemies, and the boss fights aren't as challenging as I hoped.
- Once you finish the main story, there isn't much to do in the endgame.
- Having to be online all the time is annoying, especially if your internet isn't reliable. I really hate when they do this in single-player games, this should not be a thing.
- The shop is overpriced and predatory, it was designed in a way that makes it unclear what players are getting for their money. Additionally, the inability to purchase items from the rewards you get upon completing the battle pass is just plain greedy.
- The first season of the game was disappointing, and Blizzard has been slow in fixing the bugs and adding in new content. They said they'd fix things by season 2, which seems like too long to wait for simple improvements. It doesn't seem reasonable that a simple adjustment like adding a separate inventory tab for gems would take them months to implement?!

Overall, Diablo 4 has its ups and downs. If you're a fan of the series, you'll probably enjoy it, but it's not the groundbreaking game some were hoping for. It seems like they want to turn it into a live service game, which is why it has the always-online requirement. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, and I worry it might hurt the game in the long run.

Diablo IV

A hell of a mess

Player Score

ayad