Diablo IV Review (Battle Net/PC)

by Jim Smale · Published July 14, 2023 · Updated July 12, 2023

For our Diablo IV Review, where once again the endless battle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells rages on as chaos threatens to consume Sanctuary. With ceaseless demons to slaughter, countless Abilities to master, nightmarish Dungeons, and Legendary loot, this vast, open world brings the promise of adventure and devastation. Survive and conquer darkness – or succumb to the shadows.

Diablo IV Review Pros:

The darkest yet beautiful graphics.
76.7GB Download size.
Own in-game achievements.
Optional high-resolution assets download.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – display, adapter, monitor, resolution, sharpen image, font scale, cursor scale, HDR, v-sync, limit cutscenes FPS, lock cursor, peripheral lighting, brightness slider, and color blind filter.
Performance settings – resolution percentage, NVIDIA DLSS, frame generation, max foreground FPS, max background FPS, NVIDIA reflex low latency.
Quality settings – preset including custom, anisotropic filtering, shadow, dynamic shadows, soft shadows, shader, SSAO, fog, clutter, fur quality, water simulation, anti-aliasing, geometric complexity, terrain geometry detail, physics, particles, reflection, screen-space reflections, distortion, and low FX.
Can rebind controls for the mouse and keyboard.
Controller settings – swap sticks, inner dead zone, outer dead zone, and sensitivity slider. You can assign shortcuts to your own button layouts.
Edit the color of all visual text types.
Accessibility for a screen reader and/or text-to-speech.
Ten character slots.
Two world tiers to choose from initially which boils down to normal and hard difficulty.
Set of You has more or less tutorial/hint pop-ups especially showing off new mechanics.
Action RPG gameplay.
Opening Prologue acts as an in-depth tutorial but you continue to get new pop-ups as you play.
The lighting makes the game so atmospheric.
Events can spawn in the area and anyone can join and take part for Rewards.
A lot of Interactive traversal points like climbing walls, or using rope climbing.
You can rip out an Aspect item from a legendary and use this to add a socket to an item.
Full Gems support again where socketing a gem into a weapon or item/armor can add passive buffs, and you can craft better gems to improve the buff stats.
As you level up you can increase the potency and amount of health potions you carry and use.
The main story acts all show you can kind of tackle them how you want.
Many many optional side quests.
An additional side quest variation is where you get an item and the set area to explore and do actions in and then return the item.
All vendors show different stock and has a timer to show when the stock gets refreshed.
Strongholds are self-contained events where you have to do many little steps that lead up to a big boss fight, once conquered you uncover a chunk of the map and get a new town.
Fast travel points within each town.
Treasure goblins are back, they are harder to kill, faster, better loot, and show up on the map.
The map and icons uncover as you explore.
Play the whole game how you want.
When you break an item down you get it as a transmog.
Customizing your character is now bigger with every item transmoggable and each having a set amount of color palettes plus it’s free so you can do it whenever.
Mounts can be unlocked and are used for faster travel and allows you to jump off them and attack.
Pay gold to respect your character by getting all your skill points back or individual skill points if the flow of the skill tree allows it.
New mechanics and vendors unlock as per your level which helps ease you in.
Massive boss encounters from in-set pieces to the open world.
The world map is huge. Each area within it has level requirements. (it’s not locked so you can go even if you are under-leveled)
Panoramic spots can be interacted with and these give you a glorious flyover.
Handy shortcut buttons on both the keyboard and the controller.
All loot and items/materials have rarity levels.
Resources are more focused on now so you need to farm animals and creatures for set resource drops, break stones for ore and pick flowers, etc.
When breaking down/dismantling items at the Blacksmith you get a handy icon to show what can be broken down.
Equipment has durability that goes down upon death, you can repair it at blacksmiths.
It’s a world that encourages exploration and is so much fun to do.
Lillith Altars are in set places and there is a set amount, they give a permanent buff or stat increase to your character.
Pylons randomly spawn and give a time-limited buff like higher damage or a shield etc.
The best feature for me is you lay a pin down (all Co-op players can see) and it creates a line to it like a driving line in racing games.
Clan support is complete with name and banner options.
A lot of self-contained sequences.
In-game shop for real money purchases on a rotating time window.
The town portal is back and allows you to return to town and this time you have a shield as standard meaning it’s uninterrupted by enemy attacks.
Emote wheel that can be customized.
Handy leave dungeon entry in the emote wheel.
Many different chest types including some that need a particular key. (purchased with in-game currency)
A much more living world feels with animals free roaming and enemies roaming around rather than waiting.

Diablo IV Review Cons:

No benchmark test.
Cannot rebind controls.
Doesn’t seem to be a way to Invert the axis.
Takes a long time for the game to get going especially how long it takes for the mount.
In places, the game can get very dark, and hard to see what’s going on.
Pylons seem to be individual activations rather than area-based like in D3.
Difficulty spikes throughout.
Early on the boss fights are just massive bullet sponges and not that eventful.
The cost of real money purchases is crazy, I saw a skin for a rogue going for 21 quid!
Takes so long to get the mount available in the first place.
Difficulty spikes throughout.
Not all events and story wrap-ups are satisfying.
The town portal always takes you back to the main town, would have been cool to set your own town to the portal too.
Materials and resources are white text which can lead to you skipping over and then thinking they are low-level items.
Armour racks still drop garbage and unusable items.
The clear map overlay is not in the game now which made navigation easier especially in the dungeons.
Doesn’t have pets or wings.