Diablo IV
Blizzard Entertainment · ARPG, RPG, Dungeon Crawler
Overview
Join the fight for Sanctuary in Diablo® IV, the ultimate action RPG adventure. Experience the critically acclaimed campaign and new seasonal content.
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Diablo® IV is the ultimate action-RPG experience with endless evil to slaughter, countless abilities to master, nightmarish dungeons, and legendary loot. Embark on the epic campaign solo or with friends, meeting memorable characters through a gripping story in a beautifully dark world, or explore an expansive end game: battle iconic bosses for powerful loot, fight back the encroaching onslaught of Hell in Helltides, master the Forge to create your ultimate weapons and progress powerful characters, with cross-play and cross-progression on all available platforms.
Welcome to Hell
Discover the critically acclaimed franchise that defined the Action RPG genre. As the battle between the High Heavens and Burning Hells rages on, hatred devours Sanctuary as evil spreads and a new wave of cultists and worshippers arise to embrace Lilith’s coming. Only a brave few dare to face this threat and bring light to the all-consuming darkness.
Expansive Open World
Forge your own path through the corrupted lands of Sanctuary, an ever-growing, fully explorable world teeming with challenges, quests, enemies, and loot. Join your fellow adventurers, rescue and retake besieged towns, delve into nightmarish dungeons and uncover lost secrets as you fight back evil. The many zones of Sanctuary are yours to explore, and with rotating areas of extreme peril like World Bosses and Helltide, danger lurks at every turn.
Immersive Character Development
Create and customize your character to face the encroaching darkness. Choose from one of five classes and build your hero with skills, abilities and cosmetics, creating a champion that is uniquely your own. Grow stronger as you progress through powerful Skill Trees and develop even more unique end game specializations with Paragon Boards.
Legendary Gear, Epic Battles
Discover and experiment with a vast arsenal of powerful weapons, armor and more to fight back against the demons threatening Sanctuary. Explore unique combinations, create your own upgrades and collect a plethora of powerful tools to battle in immersive, action-packed combat against the deadliest of enemies.
Seasons & Events
The tales of Sanctuary continue to unfold. Create Seasonal Characters and join in fresh adventures - master new mechanics and take on the latest threats in each new Season. Complete harrowing feats of the Season Journey and earn new Battle Pass rewards. Plus, sharpen your swords and get in the spirit of the seasons when Limited-Time Events sweep through Sanctuary.
End Game Undertakings
There’s even more Diablo® IV to explore as you reach higher levels and more fearsome World Tiers. Face the greatest challenge yet as you take on the most powerful demons in The Pit, steel yourself against Uber Bosses to reap uber unique rewards, fight back overflowing armies of Hell as Helltides emerge across Sanctuary, battle larger-than-life World Bosses, and master the Forge to create the mightiest weapons fit for a hero.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,997 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players broadly agree that Diablo IV is good to play. The combat is fast and weighty, the loot loop of killing, upgrading and pushing a harder difficulty keeps people coming back each season, and the dark world, cinematics and music get some of the warmest praise in the reviews. A large group of returning players say the game is far better than it was at launch, and many name the Lord of Hatred expansion (April 2026) as the point where it finally came together. It also has a reputation as the approachable ARPG: a game you can play for half an hour after work without a spreadsheet.
Most of the complaints are about how the game is sold. After the Lord of Hatred update, players who owned only the base game found skill-tree nodes for classes they had already paid for marked as expansion content, and owners of the earlier Vessel of Hatred expansion got no discount on a new expansion that bundles it. On top of that sits a cash shop that many call overpriced for a full-price game. The second complaint is technical: always-online play brings disconnects, lag, login queues and lost progress in a campaign most people play solo, alongside crashes, memory leaks and season patches that broke the game on Steam Deck and Linux. Free-weekend players added a third wave of anger over a trial that ended at a level cap. Many reviewers who recommend the game still warn against the monetization, and a common piece of practical advice is to buy the base game and the expansion bundle on sale.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Combat and the loot loop feel goodHigh
Combat draws praise from recommending and non-recommending reviewers alike. Players describe heavy hits, smooth animations, satisfying sound and classes that each feel distinct, from the whirlwind Barbarian to the minion Necromancer and the newer Paladin and Warlock. One negative reviewer with a long list of complaints still writes: "The moment to moment gameplay is extremely fluid, the combat feels satisfying, and the overall class identity is incredibly well realized." The other half of the appeal is the loop: find gear, tweak the build, raise the Torment level, repeat. Reviewers call it addictive ("one more dungeon"), and free respecs mean experimenting costs nothing. For some players the same loop wears thin later on.
A dark, beautiful world with top-tier cinematics and musicHigh
The look and sound of Sanctuary draw compliments even from players who dislike the rest of the game. Reviewers single out the gothic, grim art direction as a return to the tone of Diablo I and II after the brighter Diablo III, along with Blizzard's pre-rendered cinematics, the voice acting and the score. A player who got the game for free wrote that "Sanctuary feels grim and lived-in, the combat is heavy and satisfying," and a long-time player asked that "it needs to be recognized how amazing the soundtrack is." A minority find the palette too muted or the screen too cluttered with skill effects in late-game fights.
Far better than at launch, with Lord of Hatred as the turning pointMedium
Many positive reviews are written by players who quit early and came back. They credit two years of seasons, the skill-tree rework, the Horadric Cube and runewords, and especially the Lord of Hatred expansion with fixing the endgame and finishing the story. A typical line: "It sucks that it took them a full release and two expansions to get to this point but the game is finally good." Some of these reviewers edited old negative reviews to positive. Seasons 10, 11 and 13 come up as high points; Season 14 (launched 30 June 2026) is the one players most often single out as a step back.
Easy to pick up for short sessionsMedium
A steady group recommends the game as a low-pressure ARPG for people with jobs and families. They like that builds work without a guide, that progress carries across characters on the eternal realm, and that a season can be wrapped up in a week or two of casual play. "This is the perfect ARPG if you're on a dad schedule," one wrote. Several compare it favorably with Path of Exile 2 on exactly this point. Other reviewers call the same accessibility shallow.
Where players are split
The story and campaignHigh
The story is one of the most discussed topics, and players divide sharply. Fans praise Lilith as a villain, the opening act in the snow, the cinematics and the Lord of Hatred campaign ("Lord of Hatred has an absolutely incredible campaign"). Critics find the writing slow and talky, the protagonist passive, and Neyrelle annoying, and some object that a game named Diablo has never featured Diablo as a boss. The base campaign and Lord of Hatred get noticeably more praise than the middle chapter, summed up as "Base campaign good, Vessel of Hatred bad, Lord of Hatred pretty good." A recurring practical complaint is pacing in the quests themselves: "pick up a quest → sit through endless dialogue → run halfway across the map."
Endgame grind and the seasonal cycleHigh
Repetition and grind come up often, from both sides. Some players enjoy the rhythm and play it deliberately: "Come every season play for 5-10 days. Complete everything then stop playing it." Others describe the same loop as Helltides, Pit runs and boss keys repeated for slightly bigger numbers, with damage climbing into billions and trillions and little left to chase once a build is done. Veterans also object to the seasonal model itself: a fresh character every few months while old characters move to an eternal realm that receives no new content.
Difficulty: a campaign that's too easy, an endgame that one-shots youMedium
Two opposite complaints show up, often from different players. New players say the campaign offers no challenge because difficulty is capped at Expert until the campaign is finished, and leveling outpaces it: "Very odd to never die once on a blind playthrough the entire campaign on hard difficulty." Endgame players say the opposite problem appears later, when on-death effects, falling swords and boss mechanics kill a well-geared character instantly, sometimes through visual clutter. "Kill every mob in one hit for ten minutes and then got one shot by some random thing," wrote a reviewer with over 800 hours. The Uber Lilith and Mephisto echo fights draw the most anger. Players who like the endgame tend to praise the 12 Torment tiers for letting them tune the challenge.
Loot randomness and mythic chasingMedium
Players who love itemization praise crafting and the Horadric Cube for letting them shape gear. Players who don't describe layers of chance: random mythic stats, tempering and masterworking rolls that can "brick" an item, and boss drops that rarely match their build. One reviewer put it as "it stops feeling like you're building a character and starts feeling like you're pulling a slot machine." Season 14's mythic changes (a limit of one crafted mythic and a diluted drop pool) drew a wave of complaints in July 2026 before Blizzard lifted the limit.
Diablo IV versus Path of Exile 2Medium
Path of Exile comes up in about 6% of the reviews that say more than a line, and it cuts both ways. Critics call Diablo IV shallow by comparison, point out that Path of Exile 2 is moving to free-to-play, and suggest playing it instead. Defenders say that is the point: "If I want easy, I play D4." and "If I want to work on a math degree, I play PoE(2)." Several players who came from Path of Exile 2 say they stayed for Diablo IV's production values, story and lower time commitment.
Steam Deck and LinuxMedium
Handheld players are split. When it works, the game "runs amazing on steam deck," and some bought it a second time on Steam just to play it there. When it doesn't, the problems are severe: the Season 14 patch on 30 June 2026 stopped the game launching on Steam Deck and Linux for days ("Today's patch broke the game for Steam deck, the fact this was not tested is ridiculous"), a text-to-speech narrator on Deck could not be switched off ("The text to speech is permanently on IN GAME"), and putting the Deck to sleep disconnects the session. Several ask why the game keeps its Steam Deck Verified badge.
Season 15's nostalgia tripLow
Season 15 (September 2026) brought back Diablo, Baal and Mephisto encounters, classic music and areas from Diablo II and III. Some players call it the best season yet: "The current season really is Diablo at its ARPG best." Others found the fights trivial and the callbacks hollow: "Slapping a D2 skin on D4 doesn't make it better, it makes it worse."
What frustrates players
Expansions that lock skills and systemsHigh
DLC or expansions come up in 29% of the negative reviews that say more than a line, more than any other complaint. Players accept that an expansion adds new classes and regions. What angers them is that the Lord of Hatred update locked parts of the reworked skill trees for base-game classes, along with endgame systems such as runewords, the Horadric Cube, mercenaries, higher Torment tiers and parts of the seasonal journey, behind the new expansion. "Releasing expensions with new classes is ok to me. Paywalling skills for existing classes is not," reads one of the most upvoted reviews; a newer player wrote that "putting skills on a skill tree locked behind an expansion is some wild stuff." A second strand concerns Vessel of Hatred: it was delisted and bundled into Lord of Hatred, so earlier buyers paid full price again with no upgrade discount. "Don't buy the latest dlc, just wait for next dlc and get it free," one reviewer advised. Several base-game owners also report that existing builds stopped working after the rework.
Shop prices and the battle passHigh
Microtransactions come up in about 10% of the reviews that say more than a line, from both recommending and non-recommending players. Players object to the prices and the placement of the shop in a full-price game: cosmetic sets and mounts around $25, a paid battle pass, multiple currencies and pop-ups before the first fight. "Great game, but it's designed entirely as a money trap," wrote one of the most upvoted reviewers. Many recommending players note that the shop is cosmetic only and easy to ignore, while still calling the prices excessive and wishing the best-looking gear could be earned in play.
Crashes, memory leaks and lingering bugsHigh
Crashes and bugs appear in 16% of the negative reviews that say more than a line. Players report memory leaks that push RAM and VRAM use up over a session until the game stutters or crashes, forced file verification after crashes, black screens on teleport for some AMD users, quests that cannot be completed, a Lord of Hatred boss that becomes invulnerable, broken wardrobe and cosmetic unlocks, and a closing hang that keeps Steam thinking the game is running. Many say these issues persist across seasons. "A really good game made completely unplayable by memory leaks, poor optimization, constant crashing," one player summed up.
Always online: disconnects, lag and login queuesHigh
Connection problems appear in 15% of the negative reviews that say more than a line, and the always-online requirement is the root cause players name. Most play the campaign alone and resent queuing, rubber-banding and being kicked mid-dungeon or mid-cutscene, often losing quest progress or consumable keys. "You got disconnected while clearing a dungeon? Sorry, you have to do it all over again," one wrote. Hardcore players describe losing characters to lag. The launch of Season 15 on 15 September 2026 brought hours of login failures under error 300008, which prompted lines like "Mephisto spent millennia sowing hatred across Sanctuary. Blizzard did it in one evening and one error code: 300008." Players in South-East Asia, India and Africa add complaints about high ping with no regional server choice. Even fans ask for an offline mode: "Great game, but still hate always online requirements!"
Free weekends that end at a level capMedium
The September 2025 and September 2026 free weekends each produced a burst of negative reviews. Players expected a full free weekend and got a capped trial that, on completing a particular quest, jumps the character to the cap (level 25 in 2025, level 30 in 2026) and ends the session, sometimes with loot still on the ground. Trial players also report that party play did not work. The most-upvoted of these says the weekend "turned out to be a just a little DEMO." A related trap hit people who bought the base game after the trial: the trial let them pick an expansion class, and their character locked after purchase. "Your user interface failed to warn me in any clear or adequate manner that this was merely a temporary trial for an expansion I do not own," one buyer wrote.
Huge installs and slow patchingMedium
The roughly 160 GB install and frequent patches draw steady complaints, especially from Steam Deck owners and players on slow connections. Several describe small updates that take an hour or more to apply because the game re-patches every file, and one explains why updates fail on nearly full drives: "Instead of updating the game, it creates a copy of the ENTIRE GAME, and then proceeds to update the copy." Season-start patches that must download before anyone can play add to the login-day frustration.
Seasonal resets and constant reworksLow
Some long-time players feel their time is not respected: seasonal characters move to the eternal realm, stash items can be lost if not claimed, skill points were reset by the Lord of Hatred rework, and builds are nerfed between or during seasons. "You get invested in the world. Then you get reset at the end of the season," one wrote.
Account hoops and no couch co-op on PCLow
A smaller set of complaints concerns access. Some players could not create a Battle.net account because the human-verification check kept failing, and a few report account bans without explanation. Others bought the game to play with a partner on one screen and found that "local co-op is only available on consoles, apparently."
Worries that support is winding downLow
After Diablo V was announced in September 2026, with Lord of Hatred described as the game's last expansion, some reviewers turned negative over the game's future. They question buying cosmetics or new content for a game they expect to move to maintenance: "Diablo IV might be the most expensive early access game I have ever bought."
3. The player conversation
A large share of the positive side is very short: 29% of all reviews are 25 characters or fewer ("good", "peak", "fun"), and 89% of those recommend the game. The longer reviews are where the split shows. Many negative reviewers praise the combat or the world in the same breath as they refuse to recommend the game, so most of the disagreement is about the business model and technical reliability.
Different groups raise different things. Newcomers who bought the game on sale, often for around $12 to $20, write many of the enthusiastic reviews, and several say they don't understand the hate. Free-weekend players with a few hours raise the trial cap, account creation and disconnects. Returning players focus on how much has improved and on the expansion paywall. Players with hundreds or thousands of hours talk about mythic drop rates, one-shot mechanics, class balance and season quality.
Sentiment moved with events. Weekly approval was strongest in early 2026, between 77% and 88% in most weeks from February to March. It dropped to 40% positive in the week of 22 September 2025, when the free weekend brought in 336 reviews, more than half flagged as received for free. It dipped again to 58% when the Vessel of Hatred bundling was revealed in December 2025, held around 70% in the Lord of Hatred launch week in April 2026 as praise for the expansion competed with anger at the skill-tree paywall, fell to 58% when the Season 14 patch broke Steam Deck in late June 2026, and fell to 54% across 652 reviews in the week of 14 September 2026, when the Season 15 launch outage, another capped free weekend and the Diablo V announcement landed together. Each time, approval climbed back to around 70% or higher within a week or two.
4. What the developers could do
- Stop locking skill-tree nodes and core systems for existing classes behind the newest expansion. This is the single most repeated and most upvoted grievance; players accept paid classes and regions but treat locked nodes on classes they already bought as taking content away.
- Give earlier expansion owners an upgrade price. Vessel of Hatred buyers repeatedly say they were charged twice when it was bundled into Lord of Hatred, and many say they will not buy future expansions at launch because of it.
- Make disconnects recoverable and add an offline or solo mode. Players most often describe losing quest progress, dungeon keys, tributes and hardcore characters to dropped connections in content they play alone.
- Fix the memory leak and crash-on-verify loop. Crash and memory complaints span many seasons and hardware setups, and players say these bugs, more than anything else, make an otherwise enjoyable game unplayable.
- Test season patches on Steam Deck and Linux, and fix the text-to-speech toggle on Deck. The Season 14 launch failure and the narrator that cannot be switched off generated a concentrated wave of negative reviews from players who bought the Steam version specifically for handheld play.
- Run free weekends as real free weekends, or label them as a demo. Players objected to the surprise level jump to the cap, the session ending with loot on the ground, disabled party play and expansion classes that lock after purchase.
- Patch in place instead of copying the whole install. Hour-long updates and the need for a second full install's worth of free space are a recurring barrier for Deck owners and players on slow connections.
- Let first-time players raise the difficulty during the campaign. New players repeatedly say the story loses its tension because Expert is the cap until the campaign ends.
Open the Vessel of Hatred page
1. Summary
Vessel of Hatred is Diablo IV's first paid expansion. It added the Spiritborn class, the jungle region of Nahantu, mercenary companions, runewords, two endgame activities and a campaign that picks up where the base game ended. The Spiritborn gets the most praise: 10% of all reviews speak well of it, and 83% of the reviews that judge the class like it, including many that vote against the expansion. Nahantu's look and music have fans too. The campaign is where the expansion loses people. Critics of the story outnumber its fans more than three to one, and their recurring complaints are that the plot centers on Neyrelle while the player follows her around, that it stops on a cliffhanger without a fight against Mephisto, and that it is short. At $40 that short campaign drew complaints about value from reviewers on both sides of the vote, and the launch brought license errors, crashes and a new class far stronger than the others.
Opinion was already split before December 2025, with 46% of the reviews written up to then recommending it. That month Vessel of Hatred stopped being sold separately and was included in Lord of Hatred at no extra cost, with no discount for people who already owned it. About half of the reviews written from then on name that deal, and only 17% of that later group are positive. The reviewers who name it are angry about what they paid, and some say in the same review that they enjoyed the class or the campaign.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
The Spiritborn classHigh
No other part of the expansion is praised as often: 107 reviews (10%) speak well of the Spiritborn, and 83% of the reviews that give any opinion of the class are positive about it. Players describe a fast, mobile melee class built around animal spirits, with more build freedom than the base classes. "The Spiritborn class is also probably the most fun I have had in Diablo in a long time." 31 of the reviews that praise the class still vote against the expansion, usually over the story or the price.
Some say it was overpowered and broke class balance: 23 reviews (2%), 16 of them written in 2024. "Spiritborn is so far ahead of every other class it feels like you're severely gimping yourself by not playing it." Later reviews describe it being toned down, one bluntly: "This class was powerful for one season and then became dogwater." A smaller group of 9 reviews calls it a reworked Diablo III Monk ("it is the D3 monk with a new skin"), and a few players say it simply did not click for them.
Nahantu, its look and its musicMedium
Reviewers like the green jungle after the base game's grey and red, how varied and detailed the zone is, and the callbacks to Kurast from Diablo II. "The new area is a breath of fresh air." In all, 50 reviews (5%) praise the region, against 8 that criticize it and 8 that are mixed, and a smaller set compliments the soundtrack. The critics found it samey ("The new region is boring.") or no bigger than one of the base game's regions, and others felt one region was thin for an expansion at this price. The reviewer who called it a breath of fresh air also reports losing 30-50% of their frame rate in its overworld.
MercenariesLow
The hired companions, each with a skill tree and a support role, are liked more than disliked. Solo players say they help, and one long review says: "It's still a much better mercenary system than d2/d3 had." Critics call them shallow and barely noticeable ("I never noticed my merc actually DOING anything."), wish they would speak, and point out that they cannot be used in a party. Some of the reviewers who like them add that mercenaries should have been in the base game.
Where players are split
The systems overhaul that launched with itMedium
The expansion arrived together with Season 6 and a large free update that reworked leveling, difficulty tiers, the Paragon system and item power, and some reviews treat the two as one. Supporters call it the best shape Diablo IV had been in: "The QOL updates and the new leveling system are great." Others, mostly players with established characters, were angry that the item changes made their gear obsolete: "All the gear you have farmed and grinded so hard for up until this moment, on every character in Diablo4, is now worthless." Eternal-realm players and casual players add complaints about slower progression and more RNG. A few reviewers point out that these changes were free and reached players who never bought the expansion, so they say little about the paid content.
Dark Citadel and Kurast UndercityLow
The Dark Citadel, a raid-style dungeon that needs at least two players, is criticized in 11 reviews, mostly by solo players ("The main issue I have is the forced coop dungeon."), and praised in 8, mostly for its boss fights. One fan describes fights where the team splits up across floors and sub-objectives that "make these bosses the most engaging in the whole game". A reviewer writing in April 2026 says it "wasn't received well and ultimately abandoned." Kurast Undercity, a timed dungeon, gets fewer comments and splits too: some like it for targeted farming, others see a version of the Pit or Diablo III's greater rifts.
RunewordsLow
Runewords returned from Diablo II as combinations of runes that trigger effects, and about as many reviews like them as dislike them. Fans find them more interesting than gems ("the new rune system is really cool and makes gems feel kinda useless now"). Critics call them simplified, rarely worth slotting, or clutter: "90% of the runewords are bad and just annoyingly clutter your inventory." Three reviewers who expected Diablo II's runewords call the new ones a simplified letdown.
What frustrates players
Folded into Lord of Hatred with no discount for ownersHigh
In December 2025 Vessel of Hatred stopped being sold on its own and was included with the Lord of Hatred expansion, which costs the same $40. Owners got no discount, no expansion-only option and no upgrade path. 48% of the reviews written from December 2025 on name the deal, and dozens more are one-line verdicts such as "scam" or "greedy" that give no reason. No other complaint in that period comes close. The requests are concrete: a partial discount, a separate purchase for the new expansion, or store credit. "if you are going to make existing DLC free with new DLC at least give existing DLC owners a discount even if it is just 5 or 10 $" Some had bought it on sale shortly before: "They had this on sale leading up to the preorder for the new dlc so people would buy it, just to turn around and delist it and include it with the new dlc."
A minority defends the move as normal for expansions or a good deal for newcomers: "This is how WoW, FF14, ESO, LOTRO, KOTOR, ect. have been handling expansions for the past 20 years." Of the 63 positive reviews from this period, 23 mention the bundle, more than half of them to defend it or to welcome getting two expansions for one price. Several of the owners who complain say in the same review that they enjoyed the class or the campaign.
A short story that sidelines the playerHigh
The campaign draws more criticism than any other part of the new content: 198 reviews (19%) criticize the story and 60 (6%) praise it. A fifth of the critics (39) still recommend the expansion.
- Neyrelle. She is named in 4% of reviews (36), and 31 of those complain about her, mostly calling her annoying or saying the story spends too much time on her. "How is she so boring and annoying at the same time"
- The player as bystander. "The writers of the story had my character continue being Neyrelle's sidekick." Another reviewer: "your character has very little to no agency in what actually happens in the story of this expansion."
- The ending. About 40 reviews (4%) object to the cliffhanger, the filler feel or the missing Mephisto fight: "don't sell me a 40$ product that is just a setup for another upcoming 40$ product."
- Length. A similar number call it short. Reported times run from 90 minutes or less for the main quest to about 12 hours with every side quest, and one reviewer says "it only took me around 5 hours to beat it".
A few of the story's defenders like Neyrelle too ("I think she's a well-motivated character with intriguing flaws."). Others shrug off the campaign because they think the story matters little in Diablo: "each game is played for hours on end not for the campaign but for everything else". Some critics still praise the cinematics and the final boss.
Too little content for the priceHigh
About 105 of the 643 reviews written before December 2025 (16%) call the price too high or tell readers to wait for a sale. They set one class, one region and a few hours of campaign against $40, and $90 for the Ultimate edition with its cosmetics and battle pass. "Less of an expansion, more of a paid season." When reviewers name a fair price, it mostly falls between $15 and $25. About one in ten positive reviews also call it overpriced or advise waiting for a sale, like this one: "it's good. not really $40 good, but maybe for like $25 or less."
Crashes, bugs and a broken launch dayMedium
Launch day started hours late. A quarter of the reviews from the first two days (24 of 100) are about the delay, failed logins or an "Unable to find a valid license" error that locked out paying players, some of them on the $90 edition. In the weeks after, players reported crashes on teleport and at the end of dungeons, the "Fenris" and "Data Retrieval Error" crashes, frame-rate drops in Nahantu, quest steps that broke and had to be replayed, and disconnects in the middle of boss fights. "The real prime evil is the lack of polish." In all, about 85 reviews (8%) describe technical trouble, most of them written in 2024, though a few later reviews still describe crashes and quests that had to be restarted.
Complaints about Diablo IV as a wholeMedium
Part of the negative vote is about the base game: seasons that reset progress, the cash shop and battle pass, the always-online requirement, and an endgame that feels like an RNG grind. 3% of reviews (32) mention Path of Exile, usually to recommend it instead. "If you want killing demons to feel like a chore, Diablo IV is for you."
Paid features that feel like base-game systemsLow
A smaller group objects to what the purchase locks away. Mercenaries, runewords and the new class sit behind the expansion, which some call pay-to-win in a shared open world, and others say belonged in the base game from the start: "It really sucks you need to buy DLC to unlock basic progression systems behind an expansion".
Purchases that did not unlockLow
About 2% of reviews describe paying and not getting what they paid for: missing Ultimate edition items or battle pass, the game asking them to buy the expansion they own, Battle.net accounts that did not pick up a Steam purchase, and an expansion bought on one platform that does not carry over to another. "if you buy the upgraded version of the dlc have fun messaging support for days with hopes to receive the promised items you paid for" Two reviewers also dislike the wardrobe pushing the expansion's cosmetics at them; one says it promises them with the expansion when only the deluxe edition includes them.
A recap video that spoils the base gameLow
Two reviewers warn that once the expansion is installed, a new character defaults to the expansion campaign and opens with a recap of the entire base-game story. One of them says "the game intro-video ruins the entire main game story."
3. The player conversation
The first two days brought 100 reviews, 55% of them positive. Alongside the complaints about the delayed start, 12 positive reviews pushed back against the negative ones, 8 of them using the words review bombing. Launch week as a whole split evenly (50% positive). For the rest of 2024 the content took over: the story, the price, the Spiritborn's power and the crashes. That stretch produced the largest share of the long, detailed reviews, some of them from longtime Diablo players measuring Vessel of Hatred against Lord of Destruction and Reaper of Souls. Through 2025 a smaller stream kept the same themes, added problems with paid editions that did not unlock, and stayed around 42% positive.
Two bursts of reviews stand out from December 2025 on: the weeks after the expansion was folded into Lord of Hatred, and the weeks around Lord of Hatred's release at the end of April 2026, both with about one positive review in eight. Negative reviews in this period are shorter, and almost a quarter of them are under 40 characters. Positive reviews from these months often argue with the negative ones, as the launch-week defenders did, calling bundled expansions standard practice or a good deal for new players.
4. What the developers could do
- Give Vessel of Hatred owners a discount or upgrade path on Lord of Hatred. Since December 2025 the bundle deal is the most common complaint, and the people raising it ask for specific remedies: a partial discount, an expansion-only purchase or store credit.
- Finish each paid story chapter and keep the player's character at its center. Critics of the story outnumber fans more than three to one, and they point to Neyrelle taking the lead, the cliffhanger ending and the missing Mephisto fight.
- Price expansions to the content they add. Before the bundle, 16% of reviews called the price too high for one class, one region and a few hours of campaign, and about one in ten positive reviews agreed.
- Test licensing and stability before launch day. A quarter of the reviews from the first two days were about the delayed start and license errors, and crash reports kept coming for weeks after.
- Balance a new class against the existing ones before release. Early reviews describe the Spiritborn as so much stronger that playing anything else felt pointless.
- Make paid editions and cross-store purchases unlock reliably. Reviewers describe missing Ultimate items, prompts to buy content they already owned, and days of support tickets.
- Keep core progression systems available outside the paid expansion. Some reviewers object to runewords and mercenaries being locked behind the purchase and call it pay-to-win.
- Offer a solo or matchmade route into the Dark Citadel. Solo players say the two-player requirement shut them out of one of the expansion's main endgame activities.
1. Summary
Lord of Hatred picks up where Vessel of Hatred ended: Mephisto, disguised as the prophet Akarat, heads for the islands of Skovos, and the player follows. Most reviews recommend it, and the campaign is what they praise most often. 78 reviews praise the story or the campaign, a few rank it among the best stories in the series, and 30 say the expansion beats Vessel of Hatred (two say its story is worse). Players also like the reworked endgame built around War Plans and the Horadric Cube, the two new classes, and the cinematics and soundtrack. The Paladin draws almost no complaints, while the Warlock divides players.
Cost is the most frequent complaint. 24 reviews call the price too high, tell readers to wait for a sale, or object that Vessel of Hatred owners got no discount when the older expansion was folded into this one, and half of those reviews still recommend it. Ten resent that the Cube, War Plans and some skills for the existing classes sit behind the purchase. Other complaints cover bugs that stall quests, the base game's cash shop and battle pass, and a campaign some find slow and padded, which several reviewers resent having to finish before the Cube and War Plans unlock. 21 reviews dislike the writing; among negative reviews, only money comes up more often.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
The campaign and its endingHigh
78 reviews praise the story or the campaign. A few rank it among the best stories in the series, and one wrote: "First Diablo title I recommend for the Story experience alone." Players single out the dark tone, the Lilith storyline and the final fight with Mephisto ("it has possibly THE best final boss in the entire series"), and one says it fixes problems the base game's campaign left behind. 30 reviews compare it with Vessel of Hatred and rate it higher, some by a wide margin ("thirty steps up from the Vessel of Hatred").
Critics of the writing (21 reviews, 17 of them negative) call the plot predictable, say characters act without logic, and object to how Lilith is written. One calls it "the worst writing of any Diablo game, DLC, expansion, or spin-off", and two reviews say the story is worse than Vessel of Hatred's. Players who liked the story mention flaws too: one wanted more of Mephisto on screen, and another found the middle of the campaign "a little tedious".
War Plans, the Horadric Cube and a fuller endgameHigh
The reworked endgame gets praise in 44 reviews, 41 of them positive. The additions they name include War Plans (a board of chosen activities, each with its own skill tree), the Horadric Cube for crafting and rerolling gear, Torment tiers up to XII, Greater Rifts in the Pit, talismans, a loot filter and a map overlay. "the cube is a game changer," wrote one player, and another said "the endgame is finally complete".
Players who like War Plans also list problems with them. Activity trees barely level when you play content that isn't on your board, which one player says creates "a strange situation where simply playing the game is actively working against your long-term progression." War Plan progress is tied to one character and can't be synced in a party, and one reviewer calls the gold cost of changing the board unfair. Cube critics say it becomes useful only once a build is mostly finished, leans on RNG, and can't target a single affix to reroll. One review adds that War Plans reset every season, and another that every character is worthless once a season ends. Fishing, a new side activity, gets a lukewarm reception from the two players who discuss it.
Paladin and WarlockHigh
Of the 41 reviews that discuss the two new classes, 33 speak well of at least one. The Paladin gets the warmer reception: 16 reviews praise it and one calls it "the greatest ever Paladin archetype put into a game". Some fans say they had waited for it since Diablo II or since Diablo IV's launch. Its two complaints are that a core class like the Paladin is sold with the expansion at all, and that it was nerfed right after its early-access period, before that player got to try it. The Warlock divides players more, with 13 reviews for it and 7 against. Fans like its look and its build variety ("Warlock is the first class where I truly felt that every build plays drastically differently"). Critics call it clunky, odd or boring, and one says it "feels like it was designed by someone who never played Diablo 4 before."
Cinematics and soundtrackHigh
The cutscenes and music get praise in 36 reviews. Players call the cinematics stunning or amazing ("jaw dropping cinematics"), and 20 single out the soundtrack, one as reason enough to buy: "Worth it for the new ost alone." Another liked its "bittersweet and melancholy guitars." Six negative reviews make an exception for the visuals or a particular cutscene. One reviewer saw far fewer cinematics than the others describe: "Besides the first one, there are NO cinematics in the story!"
Skovos, the new regionMedium
Skovos, the Greek-inspired islands where the campaign takes place, gets praise in 18 reviews. One describes its volcanic coasts and its marble capital, and others like the brighter colors after the base game's gloom ("a really cool new zone that departs from the overwhelming grimdark setting"); one calls it "insanely beautiful". Four disagree: they find it small, largely empty, too colorful for Diablo, or filled with dungeons that repeat base-game layouts.
Where players are split
Boss fights and difficultyMedium
Nine reviews praise the campaign bosses, above all the final fight with Mephisto, and one player liked that they "actually forced me to pay attention and change how I approached the fights." Nine others complain about bosses: late-game fights that kill in one hit whatever the build ("No matter how good your build, late-game bosses still 1 shot you."), bullet-hell phases late in the campaign, attacks that land when the player isn't near them, and an unskippable cutscene in a boss fight players farm repeatedly. Four find the game far too easy. One finished the whole campaign in the gear they had at the end of Vessel of Hatred and found it "INSANELY easy even on Normal difficulty", and another reached Torment XII in four days.
The slower gear chaseMedium
Gearing changed with the expansion, and six reviews welcome it: the grind is "clearly more rewarding," loot "feels more earned now," and upgrades matter again. Twelve find fault with the changes. They say drops were cut so players would use the Cube, Codex powers now come from salvaging legendaries instead of clearing dungeons, endgame sessions turn into rerolling affixes, and existing gear lost its strength. "they have just made the game even more grindy and tedious," wrote one player who used to enjoy Diablo IV. A player who cleared Torment XII argues the opposite, that the Cube and the loot filter make gearing too easy and leave no real choices.
The reworked skill treeMedium
Eight reviews like the reworked skill tree for its extra skills and build variety, and for one Paladin player it "made the game feel completely brand new." Five prefer the old tree or say the new one removed choices, and one calls it "more brain dead and choiceless than the skill twig we had before."
What frustrates players
A steep price and no discount for Vessel of Hatred ownersHigh
Price comes up in 24 reviews, and 12 of them still recommend the expansion. Several say it is good but not worth full price ("Even though it is a GREAT expansion, it is NOT worth the price of admission"), four tell readers to wait for a sale, and the fair prices they suggest range from $10 to half the current price. In 12 reviews the complaint is the lack of any loyalty or upgrade discount. Vessel of Hatred is no longer sold on its own and comes bundled with Lord of Hatred, so existing owners paid the same as newcomers: "Existing VoH owners should have gotten a discounted price". Two players who skipped the first expansion call the bundle good value for them and unfair to earlier buyers. Seven reviews say the expansion is worth the money, several because Vessel of Hatred comes included.
Bugs, disconnects and performanceMedium
Quests that stall or soft-lock during the campaign and force a relog or a repeat come up in seven reviews ("Constant bugs during the story soft-locking the progression, terrible checkpointing system"), the most common of the technical problems that 20 reviews report (16 of those 20 are negative). Others describe disconnects that lose dungeon progress, Battle.net login errors that kept one player out for three days, daily crashes, lag and stutter even on high-end PCs, achievements that don't track (Skovos Sojourner among them), and balance bugs after launch. One player says the stutter went away on Linux. Another found that buying the expansion on Steam doesn't unlock it for the same account's PlayStation 5 characters.
The cash shop and battle passMedium
The most upvoted review in the set notes that "within a week, they were already selling WoW-style pets for $24.99 USD each." It is one of 18 reviews that complain about Diablo IV's monetization, which belongs to the base game but came up again with the expansion's launch. They object to expensive skins, mounts and pets, a battle pass with several paid tiers plus the Reliquary, shop notifications inside the game, and World of Warcraft decor items in the expansion's editions. Eight of these reviews still recommend Lord of Hatred, some with advice to ignore the shop.
A slow campaign that gates the endgameMedium
Forced stops at "artificially created doorways and checkpoints," long dialogue scenes, cutscenes that can't be sped up and fetch quests make the campaign slow or padded for 14 reviewers, four of whom still recommend the expansion. Several resent it more because the Horadric Cube and War Plans unlock only after the story is done. One player who did not enjoy it wrote "I played the story fully (Because it's REQUIRED FOR THE CUBE)", and another wrote "wouldve paid an extra $30 just to skip the campaign". Reviewers' estimates of the campaign's length range from about two hours to ten or twelve.
Features locked behind the expansionLow
The Horadric Cube, War Plans, a share of the skill upgrades for the base classes and the end of the base game's story all sit behind the purchase, and 10 reviews object that these belong to the core game. "I'm not a fan of locking a third of the skill variants for base game classes behind a paywall of this expansion," wrote one player who still recommends it. Others say the base game now feels incomplete without it: "The fact that it's basically required for the game to be any good is not, in fact, good."
3. The player conversation
42 of the 142 positive reviews are a single word or line ("Peak", "They cooked") with no specific point. Many of the longer ones weigh good content against a bad deal, and money comes up on both sides: 22 positive reviews still complain about the price, the missing Vessel of Hatred discount, the paywalled features or the shop, and money comes up in 22 of the 58 negative reviews. Some negative reviewers like the content and object only to the cost or to Blizzard's business model. Others reject the writing (17 negative reviews) or ran into bugs (13). Some thumbs-down reviews still rate the content highly: one scores Lord of Hatred 100/100 and votes against it, and six negative reviews praise the story.
Path of Exile and Last Epoch come up as the deeper games, with more customization and gear that matters more, while several reviewers describe Diablo IV as the more casual option and enjoy it as one. Four compare Lord of Hatred to Reaper of Souls or Lord of Destruction, the expansions for Diablo III and Diablo II.
Launch week brought 13 reviews, 7 of them positive. Most of its negative reviews were about buying the expansion or about the shop: Vessel of Hatred no longer sold separately, features held behind the expansion, shop prices, and a Steam copy that doesn't carry over to PlayStation 5. The next two weeks brought 93 reviews, 70 positive, and most of the endgame praise comes from April and May. Volume dropped through the summer, and a second, smaller wave of 29 reviews (17 positive) arrived in September. Those later reviews say little about the endgame and more about the campaign's pace, the need to finish it before the Cube and War Plans unlock, and the price.
4. What the developers could do
- Offer Vessel of Hatred owners an upgrade price. Price is the most common complaint, and the missing loyalty discount bothers players who recommend the expansion as much as those who don't.
- Fix quest soft-locks and save campaign progress more often. Players describe quests that stall until they relog, disconnects that wipe dungeon progress, and quests they had to repeat because progress was not saved.
- Keep the shop out of menus and loot. Reviewers object to shop notifications, shop items dropping in play, layered battle pass tiers, and pets put on sale within a week of launch.
- Make campaign dialogue and boss cutscenes skippable. Players who found the campaign slow want to skip its dialogue, since it has to be finished to unlock the Cube and War Plans, and players who farm one of the bosses want its cutscene skippable too.
- Let the Cube target a single affix and bring back other routes to Codex powers. Critics of the gear changes describe sessions spent rerolling, Codex powers that now need salvaged legendaries, and drops they believe were cut to push the Cube.
- Replace late-game one-shot mechanics with attacks players can read. Reviewers say high-Torment and late campaign bosses kill in one hit regardless of build, and one was hit by attacks they weren't even near.
- Let War Plan progress count off the board and carry across characters. Players who like War Plans say activity trees barely level outside the plan, progress is tied to one character and can't be shared in a party, and changing the board costs too much gold.
