Diablo 4 Season 1 review: New grind lacks heart

❘ Published: 2023-07-26T14:34:08

Blizzard Entertainment

After a positive launch, Diablo 4 released what players consider to be one of the worst patches in the history of ARPGs right before the launch of Season 1. Despite the negative reaction from the player base, let’s look at how these changes have impacted the game and whether it’s worth returning to Sanctuary in Diablo 4 Season 1.

Diablo 4 had a solid 85+ score on Metacritic after its release but following review-bombing amid the negative reaction to Season 1’s 1.1.0 patch, the game sits at a user score of 2.2 at the time of writing.

However, Seasonal progression in Diablo 4 Season 1 comes with several fresh elements such as Malignant Hearts, Malignant Tunnels, a new questline, a Battle Pass, and a Renown reset. Exploring seasonal content also requires you to make a brand-new character and there’s a pre-planned season journey that spreads across seven chapters.

So, is it worth jumping back into Diablo 4 with Season 1 here, or should you wait until Season 2?

Cormond is partly responsible for the Malignant corruption in Diablo 4 Season 1.

Diablo 4 Season 1 questline is more like a tutorial

Diablo 4 Season 1 begins with a brilliant animation featuring Cormond and the voice-acting successfully hypes you up for the Season of the Malignant. However, the questline drops off with no cutscenes or intriguing elements and is basically a tutorial for the Malignant gameplay mechanics.

Instead of diving deeper into the corruption, the Season 1 questline gives you tasks like completing Chapters and gathering items from Strongholds. So, don’t expect anything remotely as good as the main campaign.

However, if you follow the season journey in Diablo 4, you’ll discover a gradual increase in the difficulty of the challenges, and having pre-defined objectives helps in planning your playtime. The first two chapters introduce basic mechanics like Cellars, Vendors, and Malignant Hearts, and eventually, you’ll be expected to purify Strongholds, clear Nightmare Dungeons, enter World Tier 4, and more.

On top of this, a season is the best time to load up a new character. For someone who solely played Rogue pre-season, I felt refreshed playing as a Druid who can spam the field with tornadoes and hurricanes.

Class nerfs and leveling in Diablo 4 Season 1

Diablo 4 Season 1 reduced the damage of core stats and nerfed prominent mechanics such as damage reduction and cooldown reduction. As a result, all classes started dealing less damage, and surviving the monsters suddenly became a lot harder.

For anyone who paid full price for Diablo 4 and spent hundreds of hours building different characters that clear everything in seconds, such nerfs feel unfair and frustrating. Making the game hard isn’t the problem here, but doing so after the hardcore player base invested heavily into their builds definitely was. However, casual players who are yet to witness the intricacies of the end-game might not notice the difference.

The devs have already apologized to players for the unprecedented nerfs and some glaring issues seem to be fixed with the 1.1.1 update.

Luckily, you won’t feel this stark power difference in your seasonal journey because it begins with a new character. Plus, leveling up is also much quicker in Season 1; I beat the Diablo 4 campaign between levels 35-40 after spending over 35 hours and my seasonal character touched level 35 within just two days.

Diablo 4 Season 1 crafting bench for Cormond

You can craft Malignant Invokers, Hearts, and Caches through Cormond’s bench.

Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1 get repetitive quickly

There are 32 new Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1 but after completing a few Malignant Tunnel runs, you’ll get all the hearts available to your class. While Malignant Hearts are undoubtedly worth grinding for, it’s a repetitive grind until you reach World Tiers 3 and 4 that drop a few high-rarity hearts.

My Tornado Druid build had Cyclone Armor and Hurricane, and the Vicious Heart that pulls up to 50 enemies when the Ultimate is active made things easier by a mile. From what I’ve seen and read online, it seems the Necromancer class also majorly benefits from Malignant Hearts.

Malignant Hearts in Diablo 4 Season 1 are a good addition and unlike many players, I don’t mind killing the Malignant enemies twice. The issue is the lack of diversity as grinding just four types of Hearts won’t keep me engaged for three months.

It’s great what they’ve achieved with these hearts in terms of adding new playstyles but an average player will discover all the options within a week following which there’s not much incentive to go back to Malignant Tunnels or farm Malignant Ichor.

Renown system in Diablo 4 Season 1 needs change

Because I knew a major chunk of my Renown will be reset in Diablo 4 Season 1, I was reluctant to do anything besides finding Altar of Lilith statues and clearing the fog over the map. The Renown reset happened, and I benefited greatly from the five additional skill points and potion charges. At the same time, having to discover all of the waypoints again proved tedious.

Anyone who did the side quests and had full Renown ahead of Season 1 understandably won’t appreciate being forced to do the same thing all over again. The devs should either change what resets every season or introduce new content that contributes to Renown.

Dungeons obviously don’t feel repetitive because that’s what they’re for and I was fine with re-capturing the Strongholds because it is still a rewarding experience outside of Renown. Blizzard increased the Renown reward from side quests and Dungeons that you’ve already completed, but it wasn’t enough to help the monotonous grind.

Is the Diablo 4 Season 1 Battle Pass worth it?

The Diablo 4 Season 1 Battle Pass has 63 Premium tiers that you can get for at least $10. The cosmetics in the Premium version are flashy and compelling, but the free version only offers a shirt that can’t compete with the outfits in the shop.

I personally don’t care much about cosmetics and I’m happy with how my character looks with the transmogs and the Battle pass skins. However, if cosmetics matter to you, you might start to feel the difference between paid and free skins more than before now.

The Diablo 4 Battle Pass has a free, Premium, and Accelerated version.

Keeping Smoldering Ashes free and available to everyone is a good concept as they impact progression by handing out different types of boosts. The Battle Pass also doesn’t grant enough Platinum to re-purchase it, and players have already called out this move.

Server issues – the real Malignant mechanic in Diablo 4 Season 1

I cannot recommend playing Diablo 4 on Harcore mode. I was prepared to face the Butcher, Uber Lilith, and a ton of the other vicious enemies but unexpected server lag handed me multiple deaths.

My character paused and lagged when I passed other players and we also witnessed a server outage during the weekend. Such server issues are already so annoying in battle royales and multiplayer games, and then you have Diablo 4 that very clearly could use an offline mode.

If you cannot give the players an offline mode, the least they should get is a seamless online experience which I, unfortunately, did not find in Diablo 4 Season 1’s launch weekend.

Diablo 4 Season 1 verdict: 2/5

Most of the things you’ll enjoy in Diablo 4 Season 1 were already there when the game released in June 2023. These include the expansive open world with unique terrains, a ton of NPCs with unique side quests, Strongholds, Helltides, Tree of Whispers, brilliant dungeon design, a wide range of enemies, and endless freedom while character-building. So, sticking to the Eternal Realm, for now, won’t make you feel like you’re missing out on a lot.

Even though change is on the way, Diablo 4 Season 1 has much room for improvement. The Renown system could be made less repetitive, the story could have been more intriguing, the servers should perform better in the absence of the offline mode, and the only new mechanic, Malignant Hearts, should have more variants that encourage players to grind Malignant Tunnels instead of the existing Dungeons.

Do not mistake Diablo 4 to be a sinking ship, though. With the right adjustments, the seasonal model can easily excite the player base. And even in its current state with all the flaws, the feeling you get after your character beats 35 enemies with a single AoE shot is as satisfying as it gets. Watching your character deal higher damage due to the gear and items you’ve grinded for is still the most addictive incentive to keep grinding and at its core, the gameplay is still enjoyable.

Blizzard introduced new content with Season 1 but after playing through the first week, I fear the tutorial-esque quests and monotonous grind lack the heart to keep players invested in the Seasonal realm for three long months.

Diablo 4 is still far from the genre-leading ARPG it can be and I, for one, can’t wait to see it evolve in Season 2 and beyond.

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