The Diablo series is one of Blizzard Entertainment's most profitable properties, and excitement was certainly sky-high for the fourth numbered entry on PC and consoles this year.
Diablo IV was announced at BlizzCon in 2019 and introduced a new character class, the Necromancer, alongside the Barbarian, Druid, Rogue and Sorcerer. Each with its own set of skills to level up and become all-powerful.
Check out the Diablo IV gameplay trailer below!
During its early days of launch, Diablo VI was proving to be a massive success, not only eclipsing the sales of the egregious mobile game, Diablo Immortal by making more money in its first week, than the mobile game made in a year, but Diablo IV also became Blizzard Entertainment's fastest-selling game of all time.
However, that’s not to say that it’s not been all plain sailing for Diablo IV, because it most certainly hasn't. For example, not only was the game unplayable for PS5 at launch, but the first player to reach level 100 lost his character permanently due to a server disconnect. Ouch!
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What’s more, players were also furious when it was discovered that they would have to start a new character, just to play the game's first season of content, ‘Season of the Malignant’.
“To take part in the seasonal questline, mechanics, season journey and battle pass, you will need to create a new seasonal character,” Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson confirmed via Twitter. “Playing a campaign with [a] seasonal character (if you so desire or need to finish) will also progress the season journey and battle pass.”
Unfortunately, players are feeling furious once more and have started review-bombing the game on Metacritic. This is due to the latest patch to kick off season one nerfing every character class in the game, making it much more difficult and grindy than it has any right to be.
At this time, Blizzard Entertainment haven't explained the reasons why it’s nerfed the character classes. My natural assumption is that maybe this could result in the in-game store being flooded with more paid-for XP boosts and time savers. Though that is mere speculation on my part.
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As a result, furious fans have let their feelings be known on Metacritic in the hope of sending a clear message. To compare notes, Diablo IV has a score of 86 from critics, but the user score has bombed down to just 2.6 and we expect that score to drop further in the coming days.
“Since the new patch, I decided to stop playing. Thank you for destroying season one,” exclaimed Verliaz. “Releasing a patch without addressing any of the massive problems like storage, endgame content, useless group-play, only to nerf the hell out of our existing characters and completely destroy the Eternal Realm and to force players into buying a Session Pass is also rude. Thanks, Blizzard, you have also patched the fun out of the game,” explained SadButTrue_at.
“Stupid balance, f****** crap patch, p*** off the players. What the hell were you thinking about?” said a very angry rayzard. “Season of the Dead on arrival. Too much to grind. After recent updates, too much XP requirement. Not feeling powerful. The game is fundamentally unbalanced,” said XAIFY. As you can imagine, many of the user reviews are now filled with similar concerns being addressed.
Thankfully, Blizzard Entertainment is aware of the concerns of its fanbase as explained by community manager, Adam Fletcher. “We have been hearing feedback from players regarding some of the changes in 1.1.0 for Diablo IV,” explained Fletcher in a tweet. “We are going to have a Campfire Chat later this week on Friday to talk more about it. We will have more details/timing in the next day. Thanks again for the feedback!”
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Hopefully, those issues will be addressed ASAP and players can go back to enjoying the game that they have paid for. Diablo IV is out now for PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
Topics: Diablo, Diablo 4, Blizzard Entertainment