Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Review (PS5) – As an avid fan of Diablo III, I was quite excited when Diablo IV finally arrived in the middle of last year. Much to my dismay however, the gameplay loop was lacking something. What the game offered then didn’t keep me around for too long.
But I still wanted that same dungeon crawling and loot-nabbing experience that Diablo III gave me. While not a sweating dungeon crawler myself, I enjoy taking on harder content and getting upgrades along the way.
With all that in mind, I took a chance on the expansion to Diablo IV. Even with its issues, I wasn’t disappointed in what I came back to.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Review (PS5) – Some Welcome QoL Changes With Room for Improvement
While the base Diablo IV puts Lillith front-and-center as the main baddy, it doesn’t take too long before we learn that her father, Mephisto, is planning a comeback that could really have biblical consequences.
Ultimately you help lock Mephisto in a soulstone, and it’s here that Vessel Of Hatred’s story picks things up. Neyrelle is trying to keep Mephisto contained within the soulstone, but at the same time she’s left vulnerable to his influence, and Mephisto takes every chance he can to attack her mind and warp her perception of reality.
Unfortunately, though, Mephisto plays a very small role in Vessel of Hatred. Unlike expansions in other Blizzard games, this expansion feels like a deliberate beginning for an ongoing story arc for dealing with Mephisto. An amuse-bouche for a bigger fight to come that’s not in this expansion.
You meet some interesting characters and entities along the way, but they act more like bumps in the road compared to Mephisto. You don’t even get an opportunity to fight Mephisto in this expansion, and instead are left knowing this was just a tease, so Blizzard can charge another $40 down the road for the fight we can all see coming.
The $40 Experience
With that said, what are you getting for $40 this time around? The biggest selling point is none other than the brand new class, Spiritborn.
As a Monk main in Diablo 3, I immediately resonated with the Spiritborn. With dexterity as the main stat, the Spiritborn utilizes area-of-effect and swirling attacks channeled from animal spirits, much like how monks use holy energy. The one distinct difference is this class moves around the map much more quickly, thanks to evade being part of dealing damage.
However the thing about Spiritborn is that it keeps getting significant adjustments and balancing. By the time you put together a cool build, something with its mechanics or cooldowns gets countered with another patch.
Growing pains like this come with any game, with the rest of Blizzard’s games being good examples of this. Even a month after release, similar adjustments are being made. My own builds have been affected because of it, forcing me to reconsider my setups and gear. In a game that leans into farming for progression, restarting takes a lot of wind out of your sails.
Then, Dark Citadel joins the fray, offering up an endgame coop experience. This may not sound too appealing if you’re like me, and tend to play solo.
At least Vessel of Hatred brings with it a Party Finder option. This works well and shows off just how seamless swapping between player sessions truly is in Diablo IV. Sometimes my partner carried me, and sometimes I carried my partner.
The Game’s Free Patch
Either way, the convenience to jump into the mode without the commitment to form spontaneous groups makes this mode quite viable. As quite a welcome overall improvement to the game, Party Finder applies to all dungeons as well. This comes as a standalone patch for Diablo 4 for all players. So, you don’t need to purchase Vessel of Hatred to use Party Finder for standard dungeons.
With that said, Party Finder limits itself to a couple variables. Obviously, the first is what dungeon you want to do. Then, if you play in hardcore or normal. Finally, it filters based on if you are playing as a seasonal character or a permanent character.
As long as there are enough players lining up with your relative circumstances, then you can find people to play with. If not, then you’re on your own.
According to activeplayer.io, as of this publication the amount of active players within an hour totaled around 180,000 across all platforms. There’s a decent pool of players to choose from, which helps. Either way you slice it, the limitations put on the Party Finder leave some room for reconsideration.
With the expansion comes a brand new patch, available to everyone with the base game. This includes two more character slots, max level increase to 60, adjustments to the Paragon system, and brand new skills and passives for each class.
To get a real feel for what the new expansion brings, just hop back into the base game and see some of the quality of life adjustments that affect the entire game.
Try Before You Buy
Quite a bit comes to Diablo IV with the Vessel of Hatred expansion, like the new Spiritborn class, new story content, and a new coop mode. Calling this expansion substantial content may be a little more relatively determined, however.
The new story goes a few hours but leaves you hanging with very little to show for it. Then, the splitting of the season and non-season characters makes the new Party Finder function somewhat limited.
The new class has also received several substantial nerfs and adjustments, which makes finding a long-term build a lot of additional and unnecessary work.
Depending on what you’re looking for in Diablo, the free patch may help you decide. Load it up and see what you think of some of the quality-of-life changes. They might spark your interest to buy some new content.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is available now for PS5 and PS4.
Review code generously provided by the publisher.