Refined to hellish perfection.

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred feels like a fresh beginning for the action-RPG that released a little over a year ago. Despite receiving generally high praise from media outlets, including my own review, fans were quite vocal about the game needing some broad, sweeping changes to several core gameplay systems.

Blizzard responded to these complaints by releasing a series of updates that drastically improved and reiterated on several core gameplay mechanics. In some instances, entire systems were almost completely replaced to give the fans what they wanted. Blizzard even dedicated the entirety of the fourth season to completely reworking Diablo 4’s loot, upgrade systems, and endgame. After that fourth season launched, most of Diablo 4’s core systems were almost unrecognizable from the launch version and the game could have been viewed as Diablo 4.5.

Even without the changes and improvements coming with the Vessel of Hatred expansion, and there are many, Diablo 4 should already feel like a new and vastly superior experience to fans who may have been put off by that initial launch. For those of you who, like me, were already rather content with that initial launch, these improvements elevate the experience to loftier heights and make what was already an enjoyable game even better.

Base Game Changes and Additions

I mention all of this if only because there are yet more changes and improvements coming to Diablo 4 when Vessel of Hatred launches in hand with season six, Season of Hatred Rising. The most obvious change players will notice is the new player level cap. The new caps will be level 60 for characters and level 300 for Paragon. Paragon levels will now be shared across all characters on a Realm instead of having to grind out Paragon levels on a per character basis. Blizzard made these changes to lessen the mid-game grind and get people into the endgame at a much faster rate.

Speaking of the Paragon system, Blizzard has added in a new Paragon board option, complete with a new Legendary Node, for every class in the game. This should give players even greater control over how they build up their characters for the endgame experience. All of the existing classes in Diablo 4 will receive new class Legendary and Unique gear items. Each existing class will now also have access to one new Skill and five new Passive options while leveling.

New Difficulties

Blizzard has also done away with World Tiers for difficulty progression in Diablo 4. Replacing them are new and distinct categories of difficulty: Standard and Torment. These difficulties do work somewhat similarly to the World Tier system in that harder difficulties will yield greater rewards and greater challenges. Standard difficulties are broken up into Normal, Hard, Expert, and Penitent. Both Normal and Expert are unlocked right from the start. Expert is unlocked once you complete Diablo 4’s prologue. Penitent is unlocked after you hit character level 50. You can switch to any of these difficulties while progressing through the game so long as you meet the base requirements to go to the higher difficulty tiers.


The Torment difficulties are where the endgame really begins. Torment difficulties are where players will have the best luck at finding Legendary and Ancestral item drops. To unlock the first tier of Torment, you must hit level 60 and beat the Pit at Tier 20 under the time limit. Torment levels 2 through 4 can be unlocked by beating Pit Tier 35, 50, and 65 respectively. While the endgame drops are more plentiful at these higher Torment levels, the challenge ramps up considerably.

Each level of Torment will add a Curse to your character that reduces your Armor and all Resists. At Torment 1, you’ll be hit with -250 Armor and -25% to all Resist stats. Torment 2 will see those numbers jump to -500 Armor and -50 to Resists. Torment 3 then jumps to -750 Armor and -75% Resists and Torment 4 slams you with -1000 Armor and -100% to all Resists. These extreme difficulty levels will not be for casual Diablo players and will require a fair number of high-end gear, gems, and probably some very high Paragon levels. The review period for Vessel of Hatred ran for a little over a week, and in that time, I was able to comfortably hit Torment 1 difficulty. Other reviewers were able to hit Torment 2 and even Torment 3 in the same span of time. This is, of course, all while we were going through the story and doing the usual review stuff. I can see some players hitting Torment 4 difficulty in just a few days, if not sooner, especially once build guides start to be published.

Party Finder

Another major addition coming alongside the release of Vessel of Hatred is the new Party Finder. Accessible via the Map screen or even from a pre-set action on the emote wheel, the Party Finder is exactly what it says. Players will be able to either find an existing party to join or they can start their own party for others to join. The Party Finder will let you join up with others that are working on specific activities or find groups of players that have a similar play style to your own. This tool will be an extremely welcome sight for players who want to tackle some of the more challenging content found later in the game, such as the new co-op endgame dungeon, Dark Citadel. More on that later.


As if the last several paragraphs of changes and improvements to Diablo 4 weren’t enough, there are a few more key changes in store. There will be a new "Grand" tier of gems, which should provide a 50% increase in power from the "Royal" tier. Also new is the Favorite Waypoint system, which is a great quality of life improvement. Instead of your Town Portal teleporting you to the nearest town, you will now be able to select any Waypoint in the world as your favorite. If you want your Town Portal to always take you straight to the Tree of Whispers, you can do that. Finally, Blizzard is also giving everyone two more character slots. All of this will be in addition to the new seasonal content, which includes the free seasonal rewards track.

Vessel of Hatred

Those who purchase Vessel of Hatred will obviously have even more new content to sink their teeth into. Vessel of Hatred will add in an entirely new Region, Nahantu. This new area will include new Dungeons, Strongholds, side quests, Legion events, and new enemies to face off against. Vessel of Hatred owners will also get to the new Spiritborn class, the new campaign content, the ability to earn Nahantu Region Renown for new rewards, the new Runewords system, the Dark Citadel 2-4 player co-op dungeon, four Mercenaries, the Kurast Undercity, and the ability to trade for Vessel of Hatred specific resources. Whew!

Current Diablo 4 players will be happy to hear that they will be able to jump straight into the new story for Vessel of Hatred right at launch, but only if they have beaten the base game with at least one character. The option to jump straight into the expansion content is offered to players right at character creation if they meet that rather simple requirement, and even applies if you are creating a new Spiritborn character. This requirement seems quite reasonable given that the expansion's story picks up almost immediately after the events of Diablo 4.

Story

Vessel of Hatred focuses almost entirely on the story of Neyrelle as she journeys across Sanctuary carrying a soulstone that contains the prime evil, Mephisto. As this is a Diablo game, it probably shouldn’t come as too big a surprise to hear that Neyrelle isn’t exactly having the easiest trip of her life. In fact, some of the cutscenes involving Neyrelle are what I would consider to be (and I say this as a positive) quite fucked up.


Like in the base game, Vessel of Hatred’s main story beats play out through a mix of in-game conversations between characters, in-game cutscenes, and pre-rendered CG cutscenes. Blizzard once again absolutely crushes it when it comes to their CG work with a quality, presentation, and direction that few in the industry can come close to matching. Likewise, the musical score throughout Vessel of Hatred is extremely well done. I would be remiss if I did not also give extensive praise for the general audio design for the Spiritborn’s attacks and abilities. The voice work and acting, including Lou Diamond Phillips as Eru, are all top-notch. Everyone did a tremendous job in their roles. Really, it is extremely hard to adequately put into words just how good the story cutscenes, music, and all aspects of the audio are in Vessel of Hatred.

Spiritborn

As for the Spiritborn class, I think it might just be my new favorite class in any Diablo game. The initial reveals for Spiritborn gave me the impression that it would play identically to the Diablo 3 Monk, a class I quite enjoyed playing. Both the Monk and Spiritborn utilize a lot of rapid melee attacks, often with a three-hit combo to kick off fights. Where the Spiritborn differs is in the fact that they have access to four different Guardian archetypes: Centipede, Eagle, Gorilla, and Jaguar. These four different Guardians make the Spiritborn one of the most versatile classes ever added into Diablo.

Each of these animal Guardian archetypes play very differently from one another yet they're able to synergize so incredibly well. Those looking for rapid, fire-infused attacks will want to focus on the Jaguar abilities. Those looking to play more defensively with dodges, barriers, and a high health pool will look towards the Gorilla archetype. The Eagle utilizes a variety of fast lightning infused attacks and offers high mobility. Finally, the Centipede archetype is all about poison damage, debuffs, and draining life from others to sustain your own. Each of these archetypes can also synergize nicely with each other in various, powerful ways.

Given the limited amount of time I had to review, I was not able to get well acquainted with all four of these archetypes. I mainly focused on a pure Centipede build, which allowed me to apply debuffs and spread poison to large groups of enemies in the opening seconds of every encounter. Vulnerable enemies kept my health pool topped off while the spreading poison damage kept stacking on enemies, often killing large groups of demons without me ever directly touching most of them. Whenever I needed extra damage output, I was able to call in the Centipede Spirit Guardian, Balazan. Erupting up from the ground, Balazan shoots out more globs of poison around the spawn point and then sticks around to dish out direct damage against the evil hordes. The Centipede build was just a ton of fun to play and I can see some builds becoming absolutely nutty once better players than I get their hands on the Spiritborn class.

Runewords

Vessel of Hatred also introduces Runes and the Runewords system. Players will be able to socket one Rune of Ritual with one Rune of Invocation into gear that has two open sockets. Combining these two Runes will create a Runeword. You can think of the Ritual and Invocation Runes as an "if this, then that" sort of statement. If you preform the action detailed in a Rune of Ritual then the ability or skill in the Rune of Invocation will trigger. For example, a Runeword may grant a 2% increase to Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds every time you cast Evade. Another Runeword combination will spawn a damaging Pestilent Swarm when you cast your Ultimate skill.


The Runewords work on an "Offering" system. For instance, if a Rune of Invocation requires 100 Offering to execute the specified skill but the Rune of Ritual only generates 50 Offering each time you execute the required action, you then must execute that required action twice to generate enough Offering to proc the Rune of Invocation.

What makes Runewords an extremely interesting system is the fact that you can find Runes of Invocation that let you utilize skills and abilities from other classes. For Vessel of Hatred's launch, there will be two class Skills and one class-specific Legendary Aspect from every class available for all classes to use through Runewords. I can easily see this Runewords system leading to some extremely powerful builds in the future.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are another major feature coming with Vessel of Hatred. Players will be able to unlock and hire four AI controlled fighters that will aid you in battle. These Mercenaries are: Rahier (Tank archetype), Varyana (Berserker archetype), Aldkin (Shadow or Fire caster archetype), and Subo (Rogue DPS archetype). Each Mercenary comes with their own skill tree and unique abilities. Once unlocked, you will be able to hire a primary Mercenary to fight alongside you at all times. They will automatically join your party when playing solo once hired. You can also hire a Mercenary to assume the role of a Reinforcement. While Reinforcements aren't a part of your party, they will show up during a battle only when specific actions, which you can specify, are executed.

Mercenaries will have two main branches on their skill tree. The first branching path dictates a Mercenary's primary weapon and basic attacks. Further down each side, you can dictate a Core Passive skill, Iconic skill, and Iconic Passive. You are free to alter the selected skills and passives for your hired Mercenaries, so feel free to experiment to see which abilities synergize with your play style best. I personally used Rahier as my primary Mercenary and had him focus on his Ground Slam ability, which slowed nearby enemies. My Reinforcement pick was usually Aldkin, who was able to cast additional debuffs on enemies, pairing nicely with the debuffs I had already put on from my Spiritborn character.


Each of these four Mercenaries will have to be "discovered" and unlocked before you can add them to your crew. In each case, this basically meant that I had to do a short quest to help them out before they agreed to join up with me. It was quite quick and painless and these quests did offer a look at each Mercenary's personality, motivations, and abilities in the field.

The Mercenaries mechanic also includes a Rapport system and Bartering. Playing alongside Mercenaries will increase their Rapport level. The first four levels of Rapport unlock Mercenary skill points. Beyond that, each level of Rapport will unlock better Bartering options, new gear, an increased rate of earning Pale Marks for Bartering, and more. Just keep in mind that any Mercenary you hire as a Reinforcement will only earn Rapport at half the rate of the primary Mercenary.

Those Pale Marks you earn through the Mercenary system can be spent at the Mercenary Hideout. It is here where you will be able to trade in the Pale Marks for a growing assortment of gear and caches. Some of the gear I ended up wearing for a long while in Penitent and Torment difficulties came from gear caches bought from the Mercenaries.

New Endgame Challenges

Players looking for new endgame challenges will have a decent selection to choose from in Vessel of Hatred. In addition to the existing Nightmare dungeons, world bosses, Tormented bosses, Helltide, The Pit, and so on, Vessel of Hatred adds in the Kurast Undercity, Dark Citadel, and the Realmwalker world event. Though technically the Realmwalker content will be available to everyone as part of the Season of Hatred Rising.

Kurast Undercity is a fast-paced, multi-stage dungeon that pits you against lots of enemies and a timer. The Kurast Undercity will open to players rather early on, making it a great place to level up or farm for gear and items once you hit the player level cap. Players will be able to influence the type and quality of loot that drops by applying special keys called Spirit Tributes. I really had a lot of fun with Kurast Undercity runs, especially on higher difficulties where there is literally no time to waste. I was sometimes getting to the boss fight at the end with just seconds to spare on the tougher difficulties.


One thing that I chose not to play during the review period is the Dark Citadel co-op PvE dungeon. This 2-4 player dungeon will offer unique gear not found elsewhere in Diablo 4. There will also be cosmetics that are exclusive to the Dark Citadel. From what I've gathered from others who did run the Dark Citadel, it is a unique and challenging experience. There are boss fights in the Dark Citadel that are often more mechanically complex than what you would find throughout the rest of Diablo 4. There are also various puzzles and sections where players will be split up. You do not need to verbally communicate with your partners in the Dark Citadel thanks to the new Marker System. I'm looking forward to my friend and I both going in blind to this dungeon once the retail release drops.

Realmwalker World Events are another opportunity to tackle some challenging content. Realmwalkers are these big, hulking beasts that appear in various regions throughout Sanctuary. When a Realmwalker event begins, these creatures burst out from their underground slumber and begin a slow march throughout the zone. Immune to direct damage, players will have to kill a steady stream of Bloodbound Guardians that the Realmwalker spawns in its wake. Take out enough of the little guys and the Realmwalker comes to a halt and the second part of the fight begins. This second phase tasks you with taking out three empowering spires all while fighting more enemies. Once all three spires are destroyed, the Realmwalker can take damage. From there, it's just a matter of killing it before it kills you.


When defeated, the Realmwalker drops a portal that allows you to enter the Seething Realm, home to Rupture Dungeons. The Seething Realm acts as a mini-hub of sorts. It just so happens to be a hub that is full of enemies that are trying to stop you from reaching a Realm Gate within. If you do make it to the Realm Gate, you can spend materials to choose which type of special seasonal potion you'll find at the end of the dungeon. These special potions, called Seething Opals, increase the chances monsters will drop certain types of items such as crafting materials, gold, or even gear for 30 minutes. Each Seething Opal potion also gives you a 15% experience boost for that same span of time, making each Realmwalker event very worthwhile for base character leveling and for Paragon leveling.

General Impressions

Here it is, after six full pages of review (so Word tells me), it's finally time to condense my thoughts on the entire experience. Did I like Vessel of Hatred? Yes, I absolutely did. I feel like it was an extremely well put together expansion that offers up a lot of exciting new content that I cannot wait to play more of when it releases in a few days. I think that the sound design, the visuals, the lighting, Runewords, Mercenaries, the new area of Nahantu, and especially the Spiritborn class are all excellent. I also need to sing the praises of one of the new Strongholds found in Nahantu, The Festering Dark. This Stronghold is unlike anything yet seen in Diablo 4 and while I quite like that Blizzard attempted something very unique with it, I know it's going to be a point of controversy for many.

I also largely enjoyed the main story beats throughout Vessel of Hatred. As a continuation of the overall narrative that began in Diablo 4, I cannot help but feel like the ending to Vessel of Hatred may rub some players the wrong way. I personally found the ending to be very exciting, in a way, but I can tell already that there will be some people that will be upset at what does (and does not) happen during the campaign. I think that the weakest component of the story is the wasted potential of one character and their associated plot. This character is introduced early in the Vessel of Hatred story, shows up only a couple more times and then that's kind of it for them. I would have liked to have seen more quests focused on this character and plot point because as it is they just feel like a bit of a throwaway piece of the story.

Final Thoughts

Diablo 4 itself has come a very, very long way since its initial release in 2023. The updates released over the past several months are worth checking out on their own if you have not played since release. The excellent Vessel of Hatred campaign and the wealth of new content coming with it and the Season of Hatred Rising are just icing on the cake at that point. If you've been playing Diablo 4 regularly for the past year, Vessel of Hatred certainly won't disappoint. In fact, I daresay that fans of Diablo 2 will be pretty excited by some of the locations and events that transpire in Vessel of Hatred. This expansion is worth it for the continuation of the story and the Spiritborn class alone. Then you also have the Mercenary system, Runewords, the Dark Citadel, and so much more. Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred isn't just the best that Diablo 4 has ever been, it feels like it could be the best Diablo as a whole has ever been.

It seems more than appropriate that Vessel of Hatred's launch will bring Diablo 4 to version 2.0 (well, 2.0.2 after a couple of day one patches), because it really is like an entirely new game in almost every way. I had a great time adventuring through Nahantu and getting a taste of the Spiritborn class. Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is one of the few titles that I want to jump straight back into after wrapping up a review. I believe the last time I felt that way about a game was with Elden Ring, so Vessel of Hatred is certainly amongst good company there.

As a small aside, I also want to give a shoutout to the excellent review process for Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. This was, by far, the best pre-release review period I think I have ever had with any game. The Blizzard PR team and several members of the Diablo development team shared tons of information with a large group of us reviewers in a dedicated Discord server. We had immediate access to support, insight, and general discussion from those who work directly with the game. Reviewers were able to share their character builds, talk about story beats, and more. All of this was a completely new experience and was a breath of fresh air compared to the normal review process for games.

Related to the above, there was a dedicated Q&A session with Diablo 4 game director Brent Gibson, lead game designer Rex Dickson, and lead live game designer Colin Finer. I will have a separate piece featuring many of the questions and answers offered during that session coming in a future article at Total Gaming Network.


​

Score

Additional Information

• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
  • Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment
  • Published by: Blizzard Entertainment
• Price: Starting at $39.99 (USD)
• Platform reviewed on: PC (also available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, & Xbox Series X|S)
• Release Date: October 8, 2024
• ESRB: Rated M for Mature 17+ (Blood and gore, intense violence, language)
• This game was provided to Total Gaming Network for review purposes.

Additional Screenshots