Diablo 4 Season 4, Loot Reborn, fixed the game

When a live service game undergoes a major system overhaul, it’s often referred to as an about-face, change of course, or even a mea culpa – especially if the game went in a direction that the community didn’t like. But a truly successful update of this kind is one that allows a game to be more fully itself; unlocking something beautiful that was always present at its core, difficult to achieve.

Blizzard made sure of this in 2014 with the “Loot 2.0” update Diablo 3, which saved a game that had been floundering since its release due to technical issues, an unpopular in-game auction house, and a perceived softening of the tone of this fantasy horror series. But Loot 2.0 didn’t make it Diablo 3 more of a fan favorite Diablo 2. This made it more like itself – extravagant, frenetic and surreal in its randomization – while at the same time increasing the rewards for playing extravagantly and unleashing the excellent combat design that has always been at the heart of the game.

With the Season 4 update for Diablo 4 – called “Loot Reborn”, certainly a reference to the famous Loot 2.0 patch – Blizzard has done it again. I wanted the patch to make the game more similar Diablo 3because I am a Diablo 3 fan, but that is not the case. It did something better and brought to light a whole new item game Diablo 4 that has its own unique taste. After just a few hours of play, it’s clear how much more fun the game is now.

Season 4 also not only revolutionized the way loot works, making it more rewarding and less of a mind-numbing nightmare for administrators. It brought Helltides, previously a late-game activity, right into the core of the game from the start. These massively multiplayer-style live events, which take players to areas of the map under attack by demon armies for an hour at a time, have been redesigned to be much more intense and exciting. Now Helltides are promoting an aspect of Diablo 4 It has a very different feel to its predecessors: players flock from all over the map to take on big bosses in the open, rather than diving into dungeons one at a time.

Unlike its predecessor Diablo 4 Seasons, you don’t have to start a new character to enjoy Loot Reborn. Most of the changes and new content in this patch are permanent and can be found in the Eternal Realm (where characters live forever and share progress) as well as the Seasonal Realm (where you have to start from scratch in most cases, but not all). Things). So you can jump in with any of your previous characters.

Still, I actually recommend playing a new character (seasonal or otherwise) to get the most out of the patch. I had a lot of fun leveling up a new villain, but when I switched (in my mid-40s) to a higher level character that I had played when the game was released, I could immediately tell that they weren’t right for the way was balanced The game now works. All of her equipment was marked as “Legacy” items, and she felt flimsy and fragile, especially because she lacked the healing bonuses that are the focus of the new item design. It probably wouldn’t take too long to properly equip them with post-patch loot, but it felt like it would be a bit of a pain to get there.

The better news is that the improvements are on Diablo 4 are immediately recognizable from level 1. There are new endgame systems here, such as the masterworking crafting system, which ties in with a new endgame dungeon type, the Pit of Artificers. And the streamlining and liberating effects of the new loot system will probably be best appreciated by players who venture deep into the system Diablo 4is meta. But you can almost feel it while playing.

The first thing you notice is that the loot is exciting again. Slightly fewer items drop and they have stronger affixes that are easier to understand. There are fewer arcane, situational damage bonuses and clearly noticeable increases in your character’s power and survivability. You can feel the impact of an item better when you equip it, and it’s easier to understand how it fits (or doesn’t) into your character build. So far so Diablo 3.

Where Loot Reborn deviates from this template is a new crafting system, Tempering, which allows you to collect recipes for powerful affixes and then use them to improve your loot. This replaces the old item upgrade system with a much more personalized form of customization that uses fewer resources and gives you a creative way to customize your gear to suit your build. A potentially even bigger deal than hardening is the revamped Code of Power, which now collects the build-determining aspects of legendary weapons as you save them, automatically saving only the best roll of each aspect, which is then applied to other items indefinitely can be applied. It is an extremely powerful resource that is much easier to use, finally realizing the developers’ dream of a database of powerful abilities that grows with the player and constantly expands the horizons of the character builds they create.

So yes, the loot is easier and better. But the tempering and the code of power define together Diablo 4 as a crafting game that provides the player with an ever-expanding, flexible set of tools with which to build their character. Crucially, these tools are now easy to use and fun, fed by a steady stream of interesting loot.

Diablo 4 can still be a tricky game. Players returning after a long absence may find themselves overwhelmed by a map full of symbols and the seemingly infinite number of currencies, resources and progress bars. But the developers have rightly identified their revamped Helltides as something that can cut through all that noise. The loop is simple but deeply satisfying: kill demons to collect deviant ashes, which you can exchange for tortured gifts (good loot, that is). The longer you continue your run, the higher your threat build is and the more difficult it becomes. Die and your threat is reset, but you also lose a lot of ash. The constant escalation of stakes is truly effective, as is the way these events bring players together around a common cause, giving the game a lively, MMO-like feel.

I’m only a few hours and 21 levels into Loot Reborn (if anything, the leveling is a bit too fast at the moment), but it has absolutely reignited my desire to dive into a game that only briefly grabbed me at launch . What really surprised me is how much more personality Diablo 4 have now. It feels like a game that has stepped out of the shadows of its illustrious predecessors and the live-service ambitions of its creators and embraced its own way of doing things. This is an exciting result.

Diablo 4 Season 4, Loot Reborn, was released on May 14th on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.