Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred Review in Progress

Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred launches next week for all platforms as the second major expansion for Diablo IV. Ahead of its release, I had a chance to play an early review build of Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred to sample the updated game and also experience the main story in the expansion. Since Diablo IV is still an online-only game and since the review build had me create a new character, I wasn't able to see how the endgame and progression affected my current characters. Because of that, I decided to focus on the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred main campaign for this review in progress. It will be updated once I've experienced the endgame and more on my main profile. 

Note that while there are no spoilers for Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred itself, there will be some spoilers for Diablo IV and Vessel of Hatred. 

Before getting to Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred's story content, the expansion brings in two new classes: Paladin and Warlock, which I will focus on in the full review around launch once I've actually spent time with them beyond just the campaign. It also includes Vessel of Hatred, the prior expansion, if you don't already own it. It also includes a brand-new region of Skovos, new customization systems, and the War Plans endgame mechanic that I've not had much time to experience yet. For this review in progress, I wanted to focus on the main story. 

My experience with the Diablo franchise so far has been Diablo III with Reaper of Souls that I enjoyed replaying over every platform, Diablo II Resurrected that I liked, and also Diablo IV and its first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. I enjoyed Diablo IV's campaign barring some pacing issues involving the mount unlock time back at launch. I thought it was a solid base to build on in future expansions, but Vessel of Hatred ended up being quite lacking. It felt like a stopgap for the story and overall didn't feel worth the purchase back then. 

Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred on the other hand delivers the best of the three Diablo IV campaigns by far and has a fantastic conclusion to this story arc. In fact, the entire final section is superlative in its encounters and story moments. I won't get into too many details for the final act to avoid spoilers, but Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred more than makes up for how I felt about Vessel of Hatred. 

After the opening cinematic that recollects the story so far, you run into Lorath who plays a key role in Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred. I immediately was happy to see Lorath not just because I like the character, but also because Ralph Ineson (his voice actor) is always great. Lord of Hatred reminded me of Lorath's human nature. Since it has been a while since I played Diablo IV and only recently finished Vessel of Hatred to prepare for this expansion, I didn't realize how much I built up Lorath in my head. He's just someone who makes some interesting (and sometimes poor) decisions and Lord of Hatred lets you see how a lot of those play out.

What surprised me most about Lord of Hatred is just how much more they fleshed out Mephisto and how he, having taken over Akarat, is trying to (mis)lead the people into a false sense of devotion for his own desires. It maybe because I've been finally reading more of the Diablo books I bought ages ago, but I loved how every scene involving Mephisto here just reiterated how powerless almost everyone is against him, and how this journey is about trying to do more than just delay the inevitable when it comes to Prime Evils.

Mephisto's corruption in Sanctuary takes you to Skovos, and you slowly learn of what led to it being one of the most important places in Diablo history because it was originally Lilith and Inarius' home. Skovos features a few notable biomes and I think the story gives you a great taste of them all through story quests and general exploration even during the main story. The volcanic area is easily my favorite in how they added environmental hazards, the audio design, particle effects, and enemy types seen there.

As for the story itself, Blizzard has revealed that Lilith returns, and I was a bit skeptical of this because Vessel of Hatred's narrative made me expect just a cheap fanservice moment or two for her here. I think Lilith's role in Lord of Hatred is easily one of the highlights of the expansion not only because of how she interacts with you, but also what she does for the story itself. It covers a lot of what I expected we'd see in some lore books years later rather than seeing things play out in cut-scenes and gameplay through an expansion.

Since the Skovos isles feature a lot of water bodies around you, expect water-themed enemies and bosses early on. I was a little worried about the variety in the opening hour, but everything started improving soon after. Without getting into any spoilers and being as vague as possible, there are a few sequences in the main story that have you collecting an object to unlock a door. One of these moments involved teleporting to four different locations to get four different key-like items to unlock a door. The boss battle here and the actual gameplay here felt like padding and I didn't enjoy it at all. There is only one other moment like this in the main story, and they hold back what is otherwise a campaign I enjoyed more than that in both Diablo III and Diablo IV so far.

While a lot of Lord of Hatred's structure had me expecting and correctly predicting the outcome of some interactions, it had a few shocking scenes in a good way. If Diablo IV ends with Lord of Hatred, I'll be satisfied. I think it has one of the strongest finale's I've experienced in the series so far both mechanically and narratively. 

I've always thought Blizzard's cinematics team and art direction are both sublime, but this expansion definitely raised the bar for both sides. Diablo IV's base game had two cut-scenes I still go back to watch on YouTube, but Vessel didn't really do much of that. There are three major scenes that I can see myself returning to for a few years. On the audio side, I adore the new soundtrack with its ethereal vocal tunes and familiar acoustic melodies throughout. Diablo IV's voice acting and direction remains some of the best in the business.

Barring the actual story and structure of the expansion, I had access to the review build with private servers on my Xbox Series X. Since I beat the base game and played Vessel mainly on PlayStation 5 and Steam Deck, I wanted to experience Diablo IV on Xbox Series X to see how it felt as well. My main complaint also applies to the other console versions with 30fps cut-scenes that have some hitching still being present here. I also am disappointed that there is no way to rewatch any story cut-scenes that I am aware of or a proper photo mode in-game yet. Hopefully these get added during the update cycle for Lord of Hatred.

A lot happened during the main campaign when it comes to where certain characters end up, but the biggest surprise is the addition of fishing. I didn't expect it in Diablo IV at all, but here we are. I adore fishing mini-games and while it isn't as deep as I had hoped, I will always take a break from anything by spending too much time relaxing to catch some fish. 

I still need to spend more time with the new endgame and progression systems, but the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred campaign delivered what I wanted and made up for how lacking Vessel of Hatred was. It also ended up being longer than Vessel by a good amount. I think it might not change your mind if you didn't care for the base game's premise at all, but those who did, will find it a worthy conclusion.

Versions tested: Xbox Series X. Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred is also available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Disclaimer: A copy of this game was provided to RPG Site by the publisher.