Blizzard — presumably inadvertently, or maybe just unavoidably — set something of a trap for itself and for Diablo 4’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, when it released the game’s fourth season, titled Loot Reborn, earlier this year. Loot Reborn was excellent, focusing on a much-needed ground-up overhaul of Diablo 4’s item game. It instantly made the game feel new. But this set an immediate challenge for Vessel of Hatred: Could it have the same kind of impact and make the game feel new again, just a few months later?
That might be the definition of a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem. It’s a problem that ought be solved by the sheer amount of stuff included in Vessel of Hatred, as well as what’s launching alongside it: a new character class, a new map region, a new storyline, multiple new ways to customize your character, a couple of new styles of dungeon gameplay, overhauled character progression, plus a fresh season (the game’s sixth) with its own bespoke quest line, features, and game mechanics.
But… it’s still a bit of a problem, honestly. That instantaneous, night-and-day feeling of refreshment you got when booting up Loot Reborn isn’t present in Vessel of Hatred. This expansion is more of a slow burn that initially underwhelms before gradually revealing many new pleasures to the player. The contrast with Loot Reborn is a compelling lesson in the difference in impact between design and content — or, to put it another way, between changes to the beating heart of a game, and features that embellish and enrich it.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Vessel of Hatred and its accompanying 2.0 update to the base game do change Diablo 4, though, and mostly for the better. Starting with the features that will be available for free to all players, there’s a sweeping reorganization of how leveling and difficulty work, bringing Diablo 4 more in line with Diablo 3. The four World Tiers are replaced with eight new difficulty levels — four normal levels, and four tiers of endgame Torment difficulty. Leveling has once again been split into your character’s principal levels, which award skill points and are capped at level 60, and the endgame Paragon levels, which unlock additional bonuses on the Paragon boards. (Previously, Diablo 4 smooshed these two leveling strands into one with a level 100 cap, but removing the distinction between them ultimately wasn’t very clear or helpful.)
This all sounds like it might be more complicated, but in practice, it breaks character progression up in a way that’s more granular and useful as well as being easier to read. The game also feels like it’s been tuned to be more challenging overall to me — though that might be a consequence of certain progression bonuses not carrying over from my account into the Vessel of Hatred preview build. (Playing Diablo 4 with only four potions again is painful, let me tell you.)
Vessel of Hatred’s most important feature is the new character class, Spiritborn. These are agile melee fighters with theming that seems inspired by Aztec warriors, who use glaives, quarterstaves, or polearms and align themselves with animal spirit guardians with distinct skill sets: eagle (ranged attacks and movement), gorilla (defense and heavy melee attacks), centipede (poison and crowd-control effects), and jaguar (fast, aggressive melee attacks).
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
The closest comparison in earlier Diablo games is probably Diablo 3’s Monk, a spectacularly rapid magical martial arts fighter, a kind of Bruce Lee who can teleport. The Spiritborn initially feels more prosaic and less gratifying than the Monk, but spend time experimenting with the class and you’ll discover there’s a great deal of depth to it. More than any other Diablo 4 class save perhaps the Rogue, the Spiritborn feels like multiple distinct classes in one, with a huge variety of hybrids to discover and tinker with — something emphasized in the Spirit Hall mechanic that lets you synthesize bonuses from two of the spirit guardians or double down on one. I ended up with a gorilla-eagle hybrid, a durable brute who could still call on some additional range and utility from the eagle toolkit. It feels like you could easily roll a new Spiritborn every season and not run out of interesting variants to explore.
Meaningful diversity in character customization is very much Diablo 4’s watchword — a little to the detriment of the distinct flavor of the classes and the impact of the item drops, but with a hefty compensation in terms of how bespoke and personalized your character can feel. Vessel of Hatred deepens this further with Mercenaries and Runewords, two new systems that both develop a kind of if-then programming language to plug into your builds.
Mercenaries are AI companions who fight alongside you, with their own progression and skill trees that can be developed to complement your play style. But the really interesting thing here is the second slot for a Reinforcement character, who can be set to jump into battle with a specific effect whenever your character uses a certain skill, becomes injured, or suffers a debuff. Similarly, Runewords are twinned socketable items that pair a “Ritual” condition — like using a potion, evading, or casting an Ultimate skill — with an “Invocation” that might be a buff or a skill effect, even a skill from a different class altogether.
Between them, Reinforcements and Runewords add a fascinating new set of tools for Diablo customization, almost like the macro commands you could use in old MMOs to set off little chains of cause and effect with a single button push, or like the Gambit party-programming system in Final Fantasy 12. It’s not as if Diablo 4 is short of crafting and equipment systems to tinker with, but these add something genuinely fresh to the mix.
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Elsewhere, variety comes in the form of new dungeon designs that meaningfully expand the endgame or bring endgame-style play to the leveling experience. I did not get as far as the Dark Citadel on the preview build; this is a new co-op-only endgame dungeon that is aiming to replicate some of the refined multiplayer mechanics of MMO dungeons and raids within Diablo. But I’m a big fan of Kurast Undercity, a randomized, multilevel crypt set beneath the ziggurats of the capital city of new zone Nahantu. This combines a ticking time limit with customizable modifiers for a tense, fun, and endlessly replayable endgame-style dungeon experience that you can access from as early as level 15. It will be a great way to level characters once you tire of playing campaign quests, or if the current season doesn’t grab you.
About that campaign. Diablo 4’s campaign quests remain, sadly, the least rewarding and most sluggish way to play the game. Admittedly, I have never been someone who plays Diablo for the story. But despite the rich atmosphere of Nahantu’s jungle setting and a compelling setup with Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred, beginning to exert his influence from within the Soulstone he’s trapped in, Vessel of Hatred’s storyline doesn’t really go anywhere. The experience and loot rewards are relatively meager, and the quest design is uninspired — certainly compared to the exciting variations on Diablo gameplay the Blizzard team has come up with outside the main quest, like The Festering Dark, a pitch-black maze that must be explored and reclaimed with a lantern, or the Realmwalkers, a season 6 event that sees gigantic, tank-like demons crawling across the map, leaving chaos in their wake. Boss design is excellent and inventive wherever you look in the game, campaign included.
At first, Vessel of Hatred can feel like it’s both too much and not enough: too many new systems in a game already groaning under the weight of them, less than 18 months into its life; not enough that’s truly transformative. Give it just a little time, though, and you’ll find a rich and rewarding variety of ways to advance and customize your ever-changing parade of destructive dolls. If Loot Reborn’s launch was the moment Diablo 4 finally became great, then Vessel of Hatred is condemned to just being more Diablo 4. But more of a great thing can’t be that bad, can it?
