Campaign
10/10
New Class: Paladin
10/10
New Class: Warlock
7/10
Itemization/Progression
9/10
Visuals
9/10
Skill Revamp
8/10
Overall
9/10
Diablo 4's first expansion was very underwhelming, leaving many players with a bitter taste for the content to come. What followed was a series of Seasonal Content with recurring themes, borrowed power, and no real progression in the game's systems. While it remains to be seen what seasonal content Lord of Hatred will bring, the bar has been raised significantly with the new expansion, and Diablo 4 is undoubtedly the best it's ever been.
Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred Expansion Overview
Mephisto's Age of Hatred
The campaign experience in the new expansion is nothing short of a spectacle and an absolute joy. After the events of Vessel of Hatred and Mephisto taking the prophet Akaret's body, the new story takes us on a journey to Skovos, where players will attempt to thwart the greater evil as he continues to sow seeds of hatred across the region. Without spoiling any of the twists or big lore reveals, it truly feels like the story team at Blizzard has learned from the mistakes of Vessel of Hatred.
The experience playing the campaign felt fresh, and the new environments have much-needed vibrance and color contrasts. Skovos is a beautiful region, and the Art team has created many cool moments that strike a balance between the franchise's darker psychological horror and the admittedly pristine landscapes of Skovos. It's both refreshing in how bright a lot of the campaign felt, and it made the bleak moments feel just that bit more impactful.
Skovos is a stark difference from the moody jungles of Nahantu
The combat itself was also much improved from the experience in Vessel of Hatred, with plenty of campaign bosses featuring interesting mechanical twists, multiple phases, and great visual designs. Each encounter felt meaningful and intentional to your goals as a player, which is something that often fell flat in the last expansion. While a lot of mini-bosses might not be memorable for years to come, their encounters serve as a well-designed bridge towards the Lair Bosses of the endgame.
Itemization As a Feature
Itemization has been a sore spot in Diablo 4 since its release, and Blizzard has tried various ways to make items more interesting over time, most of which haven't hit the mark. Going into the pre-release test of Lord of Hatred, this was a sore spot in a game where historical precedent offered little hope and nearly every system needed significant work.
Lord of Hatred was genuinely surprising in this regard, elegantly navigating many pitfalls from previous systems. It really feels like Blizzard has learned from the mistakes of years past and put in the time and effort to understand the issues, offering a polished, well-thought-out set of itemization changes that impact players of all levels at every progression point in the game. Even during leveling, these changes are immediately apparent and evolve into a robust endgame gear chase that the community can sink countless hours into.
Items feel Unique again
Of particular note are changes to Uniques and the Horadric Cube. Uniques have gotten a large set of changes across the board, with many getting reworked to accompany the skill revamps, but what stood out immediately was the affixes. Uniques no longer have hard-set affixes and can now roll a set of affixes just like their legendary counterparts. Not only does this help make Uniques more interesting as a whole, but it also provides a reason to continue farming more versions of the Unique.
In previous versions of Diablo 4, Uniques were incredible power spikes that enabled builds on their own, but due to their locked stats, the vast majority of their value was in the item simply existing and giving the player its power. This made for an awkward gear progression: not having a given Unique felt bad, but having it immediately felt finished. This binary existence of Uniques has been much improved in Lord of Hatred with the affix changes, providing a clear upgrade path even for items already obtained.
The Cube Returns
The Horadric Cube could have multiple sections on its own, but the biggest thing that stood out was Transfiguration. Players familiar with Season 11 might call it Sanctification, and seeing it in full force once again on the cube was like seeing an old friend: warm, familiar, and inviting. Transfiguration, on its own, provides so much depth to the itemization of Diablo 4, allowing for additional item quality, interesting added stats, or even a bonus legendary aspect on a necklace.
But the cube doesn't just transfigure, it also has the ability to do so much more, from upgrading item quality, crafting new runes, adding affixes, rerolling affixes on gear, rerolling the value of a Unique power, crafting new versions of items in a three-to-one recipe, the cube can do it all.
Double Affixes and Transfigured items, oh my!
Seeing the creations and perfected items the community will make in the coming months will be an absolute joy for any item-hungry player, and some of the outcomes the cube provides are monstrously strong. The Horadric Cube stands as the pinnacle of itemization in the Diablo franchise, enabling items to have consequences while still feeling alive. It's not just giving more player power; it's able to create experiences and stories with gear. That one stubborn unique that simply would not roll a higher power. The legendary you spent all day crafting and rerolling, only for it to have a bad transfigure at the end. The one item that got away, or your triumph over the RNG gods when you hit that final perfect affix. Diablo 4's itemization truly shines in Lord of Hatred.
Talismans, Charms and Sets
Lord of Hatred isn't done yet, however, with Talismans and Sets returning to the game. These are far more limited and generic than they were in Diablo 3, but they add just another extra bit on top of the itemization changes so far, providing additional stats and bonuses that can help flesh out a character. There are choices to be made about which stats to pick, and with the system's variance, it's easy to get lost for hours hunting for the perfect talismans to squeeze out that last bit of min-maxing. It's not a deep system, but it is simple and rewarding in all the right ways, while giving players something to chase.
Skill Tree Rework Empowers All
Skills are one of the biggest selling points of any ARPG. With Diablo 4 featuring a class-locked system with a traditionally fairly rigid skill tree, the revamp had a lot on its shoulders. There are many good things about the new Skill System, but it fails to deliver a truly build-your-character sandbox experience.
Every class got a much needed upgrade
The new system adds many interesting variants to skills, from changing elements and skill tags to fundamentally altering abilities from spammable to cooldowns. We just wish there were more options. Some skills have a good variety, while others pulled the short end of the stick and have more generic increases. In theory, this would be fine, but the core design of Diablo 4's skills is also its undoing. Instead of letting players build their characters and play the skills they want, there is still a distinct feeling of being funneled into playing a skill within the narrowly defined design space that Blizzard set for players.
It's not a knock against the system itself, but something that simply has its limits when designed so rigidly to begin with. Maybe in the future, Blizzard would be interested in adding more augments to the skills or adding additional options. The variability that already exists offers some interesting choices, but has also fallen flat for some classes or archetypes.
Paladin and Warlock: New Classes, New Designs
Lord of Hatred releases with not one, but two new classes to Diablo 4: The Paladin, and the Warlock. Paladins were one of the most anticipated classes in Diablo 4, and the entire community was disappointed to not see it in the first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. That didn't stop the class from making a triumphant entrance as an early-access treat for players who pre-ordered Lord of Hatred. While the class itself was incredibly powerful, the gameplay and semi-revamped skill tree stole the show entirely. The warlock was announced later as part of a broader announcement of Warlocks entering both Diablo 2: Resurrected, as well as Diablo Immortal.
The Paladin, Shining Splendor
Players have already seen a lot of the new Skill system at play with the Paladin, which has remained largely unchanged from its Season 12 version. The Paladin is a great example of new systems working in harmony to create a fun and rich experience, with skill augments providing a tangible gameplay difference, visual contrast, and interesting avenues for building around. Overall, it provides a good balance of thematics and gameplay, which many people have already highly praised.
Paladin looks almost identical to its current version
The Warlock, Chaos Itself
The Warlock, on the other hand, has not hit the mark in the same way. Themes are all present in spades, with towering demons, hellfire transformations, and visceral abilities; gameplay is fluid and responsive. In terms of build-crafting and engaging with the various itemization and skill systems, however, the Warlock is overwhelming and often confusing. Instead of taking the more augmenting skill model from Paladin, Blizzard here opted to instead make the warlock more of a sandbox class through the use of Skill Tags. Skill Tags are a good system to keyword abilities and mechanics, but the Warlock cranks this to an unmanageable extreme, with some skills having upwards of six distinct tags and triggering three class mechanics, as shown below with Rampage.
What's this mobility-hellfire-archfiend-demonology-summon-eviscerate-demonform-volatility thing do again?
This over-loaded design is ever-present in the Warlock, which makes itemization, such as tempering and legendary aspects, a headache to navigate at times. With skills having tags matching nearly every archetype in the class at the same time, a lot of choices become a game of picking the highest damage multiplier, rather than attempting to optimize a given playstyle. Often, it's also difficult to remember which of the five or more tags are present for a given skill, especially when multiple skills are used at once. Most of the challenge in itemizing on Warlock comes from having to flip back and forth between your skills and your items to make sure you're remembering and targeting the correct tags.
Every Skill can be changed in multiple ways, adding new tags in the process
Outside of the overwhelming design, Warlock boasts a suite of archetypes that are broadly appealing to the vast majority of players. Between summoning like a Necromancer, spell casting like a Sorcerer, leaping into battle like a Barbarian, or leveraging powerful transformations like a Druid, the Warlock positions itself as easily the most diverse class in Diablo's history. With it being such an ambitious leap design-wise, it will be interesting to see the Warlock develop and grow into its own in the coming seasons.
