Days after the release of Diablo IV’s Lord of Hatred expansion, I jumped in with no real rush but a whole long weekend to absorb the whole game from the start. Playing as the new Warlock class, I went through the action RPG from the beginning to prepare myself for the new expansion, and it was the right decision, as the campaign hit much harder when the events of the base game and Vessel of Hatred were still fresh in memory.Â
A Story Worth RevisitingÂ
This resulted in my loving the whole saga revolving around the demon Lilith and her father Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils in the game world and the older brother to Diablo, the Prime Evil the series is named after. It was a satisfying conclusion to what the base game established.Â
Diablo IV’s story follows a lone wanderer that finds him/her to be bound by Lilith, and the game adopts a similar storytelling style to Diablo 2, where you are chasing after Diablo as he wanders through various regions of Sanctuary. Diablo IV feels much the same, as we are always a few steps behind Lilith as we try to put a stop to whatever she has planned in the mortal realm, because any major demon roaming free is never a good sign and always leads to utter destruction.Â
The first half of the base game was as good as I remembered. Characters are established and the motives of the key cast are clear. The second half, however, felt like it dragged on my second playthrough, specifically the portion focused on Donan, a Horadrim mage who specializes in Soulstones. Fans of the series will be familiar with the terms I mentioned as he was indeed a key figure in the conclusion of the base game’s campaign, but the focus on him felt too prolonged and slowed things down for me.Â
The finale picked things up, leaving us with a cliffhanger where Mephisto has become a threat once more, and has become the catalyst for the game’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred.Â
The Weakest LinkÂ
When the first expansion released in 2024, I wasn’t all that excited. It re-introduced Nahantu, essentially Diablo 2’s Act 3 region, and once again we are chasing after someone, only this time it’s Neyrelle, one of their own, who is holding a Soulstone containing the Prime Evil Mephisto.Â
To be fair, the base game’s pacing issues are a minor annoyance compared to the entirety of the first expansion. I was thankful I didn’t get it on day one. To put it bluntly, it was boring from start to finish. Neyrelle was the sole focus, and Lorath was completely absent throughout the campaign.
It didn’t land as well as the base game. None of the new characters had any staying power in terms of personality, and no antagonist gave us any real sense of threat comparable to witnessing Lilith’s ruthlessness and manipulation through flashbacks.Â
The story told in Vessel of Hatred could have been a footnote in one of Lorath’s journals, as I was genuinely struggling to stay interested. Thankfully, I was playing a new class, and the focus on learning my Warlock kept me going, because the base campaign and first expansion content provided enough experience to reach the game’s new level cap of 70, meaning I was already earning Paragon Points before my first run through the Lord of Hatred campaign.Â
Location-wise, the expansion felt like a dud as well. Unlike the base game, which took us through a variety of locales, Vessel of Hatred kept us mostly in dense jungles and tombs. The environments never felt distinct, and the boss encounters didn’t hit as hard as the battle against Lilith herself or the Lesser Evils Andariel and Duriel, which were memorable in their own right, while the others felt like fodder.
The first expansion was clearly the weakest campaign content in the game, and I wouldn’t be surprised if players weren’t all that enthusiastic about the next one given how it concluded, with two years left to wait. Thankfully, Lord of Hatred was ready and waiting for me.Â
The PayoffÂ
The second expansion picks up where Vessel of Hatred left off, though clearly time has passed. Mephisto, now freely roaming Sanctuary, has established a following through his new vessel Akarat, the founder of the religion Zakarum, posing as the prophet that has miraculously risen from the dead.
It’s a strong setup that immediately establishes a Prime Evil’s greatest strength: manipulation and mind games. Once word comes that he’s headed to the islands of Skovos, we reunite with Lorath and continue the journey.Â
From here, it’s hard to go further without spoiling things, so I’ll leave the details there. What I will say is that the second expansion hit the ground running with a major twist, and from that point it had me completely hooked. With the base campaign’s second-half stumble and the first expansion being a complete dud, Lord of Hatred builds slowly before delivering a consistent rollercoaster of emotions, one that hit harder because all the prior context was still fresh.Â
The campaign covered all its bases, giving newfound appreciation to Lorath, Mephisto, and Neyrelle, while also introducing new faces, bringing back old ones, and featuring two characters I’ll keep a secret.Â
It was the complete opposite of what I experienced in Vessel of Hatred. I was instantly invested and spent one whole afternoon playing through the campaign to completion. I honestly think it only hit as hard as it did because the full story was still fresh. It took me roughly 35+ hours of campaign content leading into it. The new expansion added roughly 10 hours to my overall playtime that weekend, and it was well worth it. The twists gave me goosebumps, which for me is a clear sign of genuine investment. The moment it ended, I wanted more, so much so that I went looking for detailed breakdowns of the events from previous games to refresh my memory even more to the never-ending conflict between heaven and hell.Â
The Lord of Hatred campaign feels like it was crafted by people who genuinely adore the lore Blizzard has built. The music captures the weight and urgency of the situation, and the cinematics are once again proof that despite all of their faults, Blizzard remains among the best in the business when it comes to in-game cinematics. The last few hours are Diablo IV’s best moments by far.Â
They even managed to make an island feel expansive, using multiple biomes and varied color palettes to create the sense of vast, diverse content, a massive improvement over Vessel of Hatred. The boss encounters were enjoyable throughout, and the finale makes the scale of the threat genuinely felt.Â
The Endgame grind begins once again
It was well worth the wait, and worth experiencing the story in its entirety, whether through playing it all like I did or through a detailed recap article or video covering the key plot points leading into Lord of Hatred. The campaign alone was worth the price of admission, but we all know the majority of Diablo players are really here to level up, murder waves of demons, and perfect builds that will ease through content to grind for more and push towards the endgame’s highest difficulty tiers.Â
I’m only at Torment 9 as of this writing and will share my thoughts on the endgame loop in a few days, but from what I’ve played so far, Blizzard has essentially pulled fan-favorite systems from across the franchise (primarily Diablo 2) and brought them together here with reasonable twists to them, while also giving older systems renewed purpose. Itemization feels fantastic, though that’s after days of play on a single class, one that I think is in a great spot right out of the gate as I see potential build variety that I’m eager to explore further.Â
I can confidently say that endgame feels like it’s in a good place, giving players the freedom to dictate their own gameplay loop rather than funneling everyone toward a single activity.Â
That alone is a big win for the community, but just like any game, the cracks will eventually show and the honeymoon phase will be over before we know it. Also, it seems like the new secret cow level does exist.
More soon.Â
About the Author – Carlos Hernandez
Carlos Hernandez is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Too Much Gaming, where he writes about video games, reviews, and industry news. A lifelong gamer, he would do anything to experience Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time again and has a love/hate relationship with games that require hunting for new gear to improve your character.
