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Preview: 20 Hours of Diablo 4 on PS5 Do We Believe in Blizzard’s Latest Journey to Hell
Over the past week or so, we’ve spent about 20 hours with a preview build of Diablo 4 on PS5, with full access to an open (and mostly snowy) portion of the game’s open world map. Complete with a series of main story missions and a series of side quests, it’s fair to say we’ve developed a great idea of the upcoming action RPG.
The short version is that Diablo 4 is more ‘grounded’ than Diablo 3, while also being much more ambitious in scope. There is no doubt that it still is feels Kind of like Diablo, but it’s Diablo as a somewhat traditional role-playing adventure, as you travel from village to city, solving people’s problems and killing all sorts of monsters along the way.
You still have your hub areas — in the build we played, our central port was the distinctly gray city of Kiovshad — but there’s a clear emphasis on exploration in this long-awaited sequel. Again, Diablo 4 is set in an open world, filled with roving bands of animals, procedurally generated events, and hapless quest-givers. You’re pretty much free to go and do whatever you want, though some areas demand a higher player level than others, lest you get picked apart by much stronger enemies.
Based on what we’ve played, the game does an admirable job of encouraging you to go off the beaten path. It almost feels like an isometric Skyrim at times, thanks to a map littered with dungeons and points of interest, deliberately leading you away from your current objective marker. And, of course, that’s without mentioning the promise of all-important loot, found in treasure chests and dropped by slain enemies.
Despite playing an incomplete — and content-capped — build, we couldn’t help but get invested in our character’s progression. Diablo’s addictive qualities are already shining through, as the game keeps you hooked with a near-constant influx of equipment drops and experience points. Even the branching design of the skill tree draws you in, forcing you to choose between different abilities and then different ones. Version of those abilities. Before you commit to an entirely new and exciting style of play, you’re thinking of increasingly effective character building before you reset your skill point allocation for a small amount of gold.
In fact, there’s a lot of room for experimentation, especially since you can always wander into the open world and test your combat skills without limits. We only had access to three character classes — barbarian, rogue, and mage — but each of them feels as unique as you’d expect, and that’s only more apparent when you scroll through the skill trees above. Do things your way.
However, this preview version had a level 25 cap, which meant we could only get a taste of how a super powerful character could play. We can say, however, that Diablo 4 definitely has a more tactical edge to its combat. Perhaps the biggest change from Diablo 3 is that battles aren’t just about you crunching your stats against your opponent — at least, not in these early hours. You’re still cycling through your abilities and getting the most out of your gear, but the lack of automatic health regeneration means you need to use healing potions when things get rough. .
As such, combat is about being efficient. Positioning yourself properly before unleashing a high-damage ability can make all the difference, and that’s where the game’s new dodge mechanic comes into play. Dodging is now on a five-second cooldown, so it should be used sparingly, such as when you have no choice but to dodge a boss’ special attack. The result is that Diablo 4’s conflicts have a much more deliberate flow to them, and to top it off, everything feels heavy. Not to a point where responsiveness gets in the way, but if you’re familiar with Diablo 3’s arcade-y approach, you’ll notice the added tightness.
This weight is also present in animations. Each attack has a weight, and the visual effects can be very satisfying. One ability in particular, the Barbarian’s ‘Shallow’, is a perfect example: the warrior rips his two-handed weapons into the ground, hurling rock and chunks of earth at the enemy. The whole animation is delightfully brutal, especially as the projectiles crush your enemies.
But most importantly, Diablo 4 feels great to play, even at this early stage. Once you’ve unlocked a suite of abilities that you can mix and match, there’s a great sense of rhythm as you move through hordes of creatures.
However, going up against the boss hasn’t felt as rewarding. In an apparent bid to try and separate proper boss fights from standard skirmishes, the big baddies have clear attack patterns and chunky health bars. This isn’t necessarily new for Diablo, but the bosses we fought in this preview build had a habit of relying on bullet hell-esque sequences that weren’t enough click Dodgy hitboxes and poor readability often made these sections a bit of a chore, and not ideal when you’re dealing with a limited number of health potions.
Hopefully the boss battles are improved before the full game is released, because outside of these few odd encounters, our short stint with Diablo 4 has been a blast. Its addictive loot and character progression systems look present, while moving into an open world framework gives the experience a new appreciation of the setting.
In some ways, this fourth installment in Blizzard’s long-running franchise is a mash-up of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. It’s the latter’s approach to punchy combat and potentially dizzying power trips, but it’s also a first love of imaginative horror. This is especially true for the game’s main story – which we can’t say too much about – but it’s definitely leaning towards that darker side of the series. And the art direction really plays into it too – it’s an unashamedly serious adventure, but it’s all the more interesting for that.
Diablo 4 is one to watch in 2023, then. While there are parts of the game that longtime fans don’t immediately like — such as the title’s MMO-like, shared player hub — it feels Complete with promises of long-term, live service support, like an inevitable development for the property. The proof, as always, will be in the pudding – but based on what we’ve played of Diablo 4 so far, we’re drawn to Hell and back.
Are you looking forward to Diablo 4 next year? Are you a big fan of the series? Start planning your character in the comments section below.
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