Did you sink hundreds of hours into Diablo 4 at launch, only to be frustrated when Season 1 destroyed your carefully crafted Sorcerer, Rogue, Barbarian, Druid or Necromancer? Are you wondering if Diablo 4 is fun now? Are there new items, mechanics, features and events?

Before we delve into the depths of Hell and take on Lilith all over again, let’s take a look back at the rise, fall, and rebirth of Diablo 4 to see if it’s currently worth your return.

A Winding Road To Release

Diablo 4 was first announced by the developers at BlizzCon 2019, with an official release date of June 5, 2023 for PC, Playstation 4 and 5, and Xbox One.

Ahead of the game’s release, game director Luis Barriga talked about the feeling of legacy. They said Diablo 4 would bring players back the sense of fear and terror from Diablo 1, the characters and loot chasing from Diablo 2, and the sweet, dynamic action from Diablo 3.

Coupled with the revelation of three fan-favorite characters during BlizzCon 2019, and an open-world map showing off Barbarian, Sorcerer, and Druid, fans were very excited about the announcement. But this was just a taste of the surprises the developers had in store for them.

The road to Diablo 4’s release was full of ups and downs. At one point in time, 2021 was a suggested release date. After the 2019 announcement, a more specific release date of December 2022 was announced. But the developers called for a delayed release date to give them more time to avoid cutting a ton of content from the game. The team initially pushed the release back to April 2023, but the team still needed more time to finish the game.

Finally, Diablo 4 was finally announced for public testing and open betas in early 2023. The first beta was available to players who pre-ordered the game, and players could play the game from March 17 to 20. Subsequently, a public beta was held from March 24 to 27.

Diablo 4 Is A Tremendous Success

The beta was open to all platforms, and during the first weekend of the test, the only playable characters were Rogue, Barbarian and Sorcerer, while Druid and Necromancer were added in the second weekend, with up to ten characters per account. Players would receive a unique title and a cosmetic item called Beta Wolf Pack.

During this time, beta players could level up to level 25 and play through all of Act 1, but any progress made during the beta would not carry over to the game’s release.

As the release date approached, the developers then announced another public beta, which they called “Server Slam”. This beta generated even more hype, especially with the addition of the ability to fight World Boss Ashava at level 20, and players would receive a special mount cosmetic item to prove their mettle against Hell’s giant artificial demon.

Players who pre-ordered Deluxe Edition and Ultimate Editions of Diablo 4 were given early access to the game ahead of its June 6 release. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though, with players still encountering issues with login queues and error codes.

Some players even encountered invalid license errors, but that didn’t stop the hype and early success of Diablo 4. The developers announced after the first week that the game had been played for 276 million hours since Early Access. It’s their fastest-selling game ever.

In June, the game had 6,750,114 players, with an average daily player count of 821,264. It’s no wonder that this game, which took 10 years to make, is an enormous success!

Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 4: Know These 8 Things To Improve Your Combat Effectiveness

Why Is Season 1 Disappointing?

In my opinion, the gameplay is fun and the graphics are great. I enjoyed Diablo 4 mainly because I love the atmosphere of ARPGs and MMOs that you can play with friends. However, the game does feel like a bare-bones beta game that was released to the public for $70.

After completing the story, players need to grind endlessly in a very repetitive dungeon raid gameplay loop to reach the highest level. There is no capability of target farming, or even post-story extra content, aside from the fight with Uber Lilith.

The game received rave reviews on IGN, Opencritic, and Metacritic, but user reviews panned the game.

Diablo 4 had a stellar month after its release, but that changed when they announced Season 1.

In Season of the Malignant, the developers nerfed multiple classes, especially Sorcerer, rendering many builds useless.

Another problem with this season comes from an item called Caged Heart of the Barber. This Diablo 4 item takes all damage dealt by surrounding players and returns it to enemies after a certain amount of damage has accumulated. This damage is high, but it gives the illusion that your build is powerful and can handle many challenges.

Uninformed players slot it into their gear and join World Boss raids, but it slows down the progress of players gathering in the area.

On top of that, the developers decided to change how Helltide works. Helltide is a one hour event where Hell forces will occupy specific areas and they will drop things called Aberrant Cinders, which can be redeemed for rewards.

The changes they made are that enemies will be harder to kill and they will spawn 3 levels higher than the player character. This could discourage the player base from grinding in the endgame.

As players felt the nerfs to their characters and items made things worse for other players, Diablo 4 saw a significant drop in its active player base. I think the nerfs were made to make it harder for players to get through the content because from a business perspective. They want to get players to spend more time and potentially be willing to spend money on microtransactions and Battle Pass.

My chief complaint about these changes and the game in general is that it treats it like an MMO first and an action RPG second. The endless grinding of gear with little to no ending is definitely a turn off for players.

Season 4 Brings Big Changes

A lot of players have left since Season 1 ended, but the launch of Season 4 with big changes has brought a lot of players back to the game.

Loot Reborn is interesting to us because being able to hunt for Aspects and even have loot drops specifically for your character makes grinding feel a lot better. No longer do you have to pick up random items that don’t work for your character and then sell them or dismantle them for materials. Streamlining the crafting/tempering/upgrading experience gives players the option to optimize their character build the way they want.

Leveling up this season also feels good. Instead of spending weeks leveling up my character, I could reach level 98 in about 2-3 days of playtime. It still feels a bit slow as you get more experienced, but it’s not as bad as the level grind at launch.

I’m also happy to see some of the new additions implemented in previous seasons, like the ability to farm items and leaderboards in a targeted manner in specific dungeons. Imagine having your three-person squad at the top of the leaderboard. It’s awesome.

With the addition of Pit, Season 4 does offer a level of endgame grinding and hype. I like the idea of ​​mixing up the experience with World Bosses, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltide, and even Tree of Whispers dropping Runeshards needed to enter Pit. But in my opinion, Tree of Whispers was completely useless in Season 1.

Issues That Remain

While this season is commendable, it’s not enough to make the game shiny and polished. There are still a lot of bugs and issues plaguing the game at the moment.

Gold Rarity

The main issue right now is the gold issue when Masterworking your items. Upgrading items with materials earned from completing Pit, even getting just one item can cost millions of gold.

Gold does seem a bit scarce to me, with only a few thousand dropping when fighting monsters. It doesn’t reward players to go to higher-level dungeons or Pit unless there are bigger gold drop rewards. This should be a natural progression. The more powerful you are, the more gold you get. This also applies to Gem Crafting system added in Season 2.

Memory Leak

Another issue I encountered was Memory Leak. If you navigate the menus too quickly, or if you do something too fast, the game can freeze or disconnect. This really detracts from the experience because you’re playing an action RPG and the pace of the game should be fast. But if you run into a Memory Leak in a dungeon, it can kill you.

Places like Pit, or activities like Helltide, are very punishing. Losing time on a quest in Pit or losing half of Aberrant Cinders can be very frustrating.

Smoldering Ashes Doesn’t Auto-Resume

Speaking of bugs, I found that Smoldering Ashes wouldn’t auto-restore. But luckily, it was fixed as soon as I logged out and logged back in.

Unexpected Exit From Dungeon

Another bug that I absolutely disliked was the one that occurred during the fight with Tormented Varshan. One of my friends was reviving at the time, and the resurrector died a second before fully reviving the other player.

When I tried to go back to revive my friends, one of them got kicked out of the dungeon for some weird reason, and we had to restart the fight with Tormented Varshan.

Final Thoughts

Diablo 4 is in such a state right now that they are trying their best to win back their player base, especially with the upcoming Vessel of Hatred DLC that is set to be released in late 2024. DLC will add more content to the game and will feature Mephisto as a potential big bad in the expansion.

A new zone has been revealed, which could lead to more long-awaited endgame content. But the question remains: should you play Diablo 4 again? Is the new season worth it? The short answer is yes.

This game is definitely fun, especially if you have someone to play and grind with. If they continue to spice up the game like they did with Loot Reborn, I can imagine that most players will come back to Diablo 4 from time to time. What do you think? Have a nice day!