Diablo IV is nearly upon us and recently it held a couple of beta’s – one closed for fans who preordered the game, and the following weekend was an open beta for us regular folk. I took part in the open beta, deciding I wanted to wait to play before preordering. Signs are pretty good though, I am happy to report the open beta was a load of fun, and now I am looking forward to the start of June when Diablo IV releases.

Diablo VI sets the scene in a horrorific manner with its opening cutscene. Visually this is one of the most impressive cutscenes available right now, plus the story elements are gripping too which gives off dark Indiana Jones vibes. A handful of explorers are on a journey, accompanied by a priest. They’re overrun by demons, and then are torn apart during a blood scarifice, leading to Lilith returning.

Once we’ve met Lilith and the story has been set up, then it’s a short character creation session and picking your class. We have a couple of options here at launch

• The Barbarian, which appears in Diablo II and Diablo III, has the ability to switch between weapons while in combat.
• The Sorceress, returning from the first game and Diablo II, is an elemental mage-type character wielding fire, cold, and lightning magics.
• The Druid, returning from Diablo II, can shapeshift between human, werewolf, and werebear forms, and possesses earthen, fire and storm magics.
• The Rogue, returning from the first game, is a quick-moving combatant that alternates between bladed melee or ranged combat with a bow.
• The Necromancer, returning from Diablo II and Diablo III, utilizes dark magic for summoning and attacks.[24]

Create a character and then it’s back into the story. We’re caught in a snowy wasteland and we find ourself in a rundown village. We meet a hermit voiced by Ralph Ineson, which further supports Diablo IV’s focus on narrative. Great cutscenes, great voice acting, plus also in-game narrative moments too (there’s a great little scene where you get knocked out and carried on a wheelbarrow).

The beta featured access to the act 1 area, which is pretty big in it’s own right, but we have got a glimpse of the full map and it’s huge. Diablo IV takes a leaf from Destiny 2’s book, given it’s a big open world where you can see other players, as well as take part in shared quests with your friends. It’s an interesting loop, given the original Destiny arugably implemented a lot of what Diablo was in a first person shooter form, and now Diablo IV is taking inspiration from Destiny 2 with it’s nods to MMO-like gameplay. As well as Destiny 2, Diablo IV clearly has one eye on Lost Ark, the korean MMORPG brought to the west by Amazon Game Studios.

Diablo IV is going back to it’s roots of being a much darker game that Diablo III. The environments are dank and dirty, demons are around every turn, villagers are drunk and whisper doom-laden ideas into your ears. The visuals for Diablo IV feel like a reaction to the audience feedback from Diablo III. While being dark, it’s also a gorgeous game to look at. I played the game on PS5 and it has a great amount of detail and quality to the characters, enemies and environments.

In terms of the combat it was very good. I played as a Sorcerer, giving me the ability to use Fire, Ice and Lightning from my finger tips. As you play, you can level up and open up new abilities on the skill tree, plus you can respec for free at any time. First time I upgraded I split the skill points across all abiltities, then I had a go a respec’ing into a single element type, focusing on fire. The combat is a little slower than Diablo III and also less dynamic than Lost Ark, but there’s potential here, and I imagine once you build up a good collection of skills and abilities through the skill tree, then combat will open up and feel more satisfying.

Performance throughout the beta was pretty good. Previously I’ve played these types of games on PC, but this time I decided to play on console with a controller. There’s something about playing Diablo IV with a controller which feels much more satisfying to me, as it allows you to feel much more in control of your character on the screen. I find when I play this type of game with a mouse and keyboard, it feels less like you control your little character, as your clicking and selecting where to move and where to hit, and it feels much more floaty. It worked for me with a controller, but if it works for you on mouse and keyboard, that’s great too.

I didn’t get to play multiplayer yet, although that is something I am looking forward to given you can take part in public events and battles against world bosses with other players in your instance. Given I am a massive Destiny 2 fan, the fact it’s taking ideas from Destiny 2 is good news to me. So far we haven’t seen anything related to monetisation in the game either, which is likely why all you have heard so far about Diablo IV is positive, which is a huge turn around from the diaboloical Diablo Immortal on mobile devices.

Overall, I think it was a very successful outing for Diablo IV in beta. It did it’s job well, getting me more hyped for the full release in June 2023. The story and narrative elements of the game have been turned up, and the overriding quality of these moments really shines through. I haven’t yet had a taste for the end game, which is so important in these games, and that’s something I am looking forward to in the full release.