You might be tempted to immerse yourself in Diablo 4 and play lightheartedly – explore this ruined world and find your way in Blizzard’s hellish fantasy. But if you want a real challenge, you’ll need to start the game on hardcore mode from the start: in many ways, this is the game the developers want you to play. let me explain.
The first question is: why risk permanent death? Because Blizzard wants you to, and the developers are ready to reward you handsomely for the risks you take. Even a Dark Souls game doesn’t punish you too hard for your death – not really. Sure, you might lose Souls and have to retrace your steps without perishing again to regain your precious prize, but other than that, the eternal “live, die, repeat” cycle loses some of its appeal.
Permadeath in Diablo has major stakes. Anyone brave enough to take on the majestic, intimidating, and incredibly challenging difficulty of Diablo IV will start doing so, knowing that at some point in their doomed character’s career, they’ll find themselves staring at dying. As well as the loss of all progress, equipment and experience.
Hardcore mode is a now-classic option that was introduced to the series back in the early days of Diablo II. If your character takes a critical hit, all HP is reduced and there are no healing or restoration items available to you, the character dies. Well done. Game over. You will not be able to access this character, their equipment, or however far they have re-explored in-game.
This usually affects your build; in this mode you don’t exactly stack all points to damage on defense, and you have to be a little conservative. But for a certain type of player, that’s where the fun is: build crafting to make your druid or anything else a threat in its own right, while still being able to absorb a ton of punishment? This is RPG gold dust. It’s something the serious RPG community is obsessed with.
Also not recommended for single player use. In past games, a big part of the appeal of hardcore modes was how they worked with co-op synergies–how barbarians supported necromancers, rogues paired with wizards, that sort of thing. Get into this world with a friend (or more) and see how you can keep each other alive as enemies swarm…it can create the same rush as classic WoW (in fact, the classic WoW community even has a Added their own hardcore mode to the game to make things more interesting).
But the question remains, why do this to yourself? What does the game reward you for? Blizzard has been talking a lot about how it’s ensuring better loot for “players who take risks and make the game more fun.” Higher numbers, better perks, items that really work with pro builds… Hardcore mode has it all.
So, if you’re going to tackle this pattern, you need to know a few things that will make your life easier (in theory):
- There is always a way out. Knowing how to get yourself out of a dangerous situation and get away is essential: if you get caught, you could waste hours of your life. As a wise man once said, prudence is sometimes an important part of bravery.
- Don’t be obsessed with DPS. By shaping your character in a way that it can take punishment, you can avoid stupid deaths and one-shot bosses. This is not the place to build glass cannons.
- adventure. Sometimes you’ll need to fight tough enemies to get loot that will help you go further. Play smart.
If you do want to play it a little safer, it’s worth mentioning that the softcore mode in previous Diablo games also had consequences – in Diablo 3, you spill all your gold on death , whereas in Diablo 2, you lose a lot of experience.
If you really want the beta experience to be more of an exploratory thing, a way to explore the world of Diablo and experiment with loadouts, classes, etc., you should probably stick to softcore mode. It’s a great way to let you experience the game’s promise without the hellish dim light that defines the experience of many seasoned Diablo players.
But I know how I’m going to play this game. Even if it’s not good for my stress level.
