not going to lie, I was super hyped for this, up until the “Don’t you guys have phones?” incident. then with the release of D:I, I started to lose hope. then when I saw the pre-order price of $70, I knew that all hope had been lost. Diablo has officially taken over sanctuary.
I was hoping for… probably too much I guess, but I was hoping for blizzard to take the reins in hand and drive this franchise back into the genre defining leader that it started out as. what did we get? D3 reskinned. I didn’t even want it to be anything remotely like D2. I played D2 back in 2000, it was fun, but I was hoping for soemthing that hasn’t already been done. something new. not the same game I have been playing and am quite frankly bored with.
at first I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. don’t get me wrong, the visuals are great, the performance is in the sewer, but the visuals, great. not mind blowing by any means, but, good. the game play… it’s literally D3. the “skill tree” is the same skills, the same runes, the same same that I have been playing for the last 8 years.
when I came up to my first cursed chest, it really hit me hard. I thought, wait… cursed chest… like in D3? then I got to the ever so boring and completely meaningless “kill as many waves as possible before the timer expires” chest… I’m sorry, what? timer? why? In what world does this fit into the realm of sensible? I am a barbarian, sure demons are spawning and taking over the town, but at what point do the demons say… “oh look, this guy is going to open this chest, let’s attack him for… 3 minutes… and then quit just to see if he can hold out long enough”?
yes there are some “new” elements to the game, dodging and being vulnerable.
dodging: so we are just trying to make everything work like elden ring now? it wins game of the year and we need to add a mechanic from it to every other game now? thanks, but I hate it. you know what would have made sense though? blocking for barbarians, shielding for wizards, dodging/stealth for rouges, you know, actual class based mechanics that would work for each character.
vulnerable: there is no information in game at all about what it is or how it effects you, the only thing you have to go on is how it effects the monsters that you inflict it upon and just assume that it works the same way for you. but don’t even worry about it really because as soon as you drink one of the limited number of potions you have, it goes away. perfect.
anyway, I am tired. tired of the scummy business practices of the company’s we all trusted and looked up to, tired of doing the same old thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, tired of being required to hand over more of my hard earned money that I just can’t seem to hold on to in this terrible economy that we are in, and to see blizzard just spit in all of our faces and take advantage of the love we had for one of the greatest franchise ever to grace our computer screens and extort a base price of $70 for a reskinned D3. I’m so sorry, but I will never pay $70 for a game, and the only reason they are charging this much for it is because they know that there is a fanbase out there, that was instantly evident the moment they announced D:I, and all they saw in that disappointed roaring crowd that day, were dollar signs. A demand for a D4 so strong, that they could put anything and people would buy it, no matter how much it cost.
I am sure that the developers put in a lot of work to make what exists in this game, even if most of it does already exist in D3, I don’t mean to take away from anyone’s effort on this project, I am just sad really, sad to see a game that I grew up with turn into a poor money machine for a greedy company that cares nothing about it fans. thanks to the developers for all your hard work, but, I hate it.