‘Diablo 4: Vessel Of Hatred’ Review: That’ll Do Mephisto, That’ll Do

As part of what seems like a more annualized release schedule of expansions this time around, Diablo 4 has released its first, Vessel of Hatred, along with a new class fighting an old threat.

A disclaimer up front here is that the true, long-term endgame of the expansion and pretty drastic rework of the game’s systems can’t really be fully expressed in a shorter review period, but I’ll do my best. And yes, I am going to cover the changes to Diablo 4 as a whole alongside Vessel of Hatred, as there’s really no unlinking them in this instance.

Our heroic, occasionally demonic Wanderer is tracking our former friend Neyrelle through the jungles of Nahantu, pursued by knights who survived the fires of hell and heading into new conflict with hatred-infected enemies thanks to Mephisto, trapped in a Soulstone Neyrelle holds, but he’s still managing to corrupt her and everything else around.

One of the best aspects of the base Diablo 4 campaign, against all odds, was its story thanks to its superstar villain Lilith, arguably more engaging than any entity that came before, Diablo himself included. Now, we turn to Mephisto, her father, and while I do like him and his scary but soothing wolf form well, he’s no Lilith.

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The story is effective enough and expands in interesting ways with elaborate new sidequests and even some of the new Strongholds, which are more than depth than what we’ve seen before. Nahantu is a good chunk of land, probably bigger and more dense than any individual region in the base game but yes, it’s still a singular region. It probably took me about 5-6 hours to beat the thrust of the story campaign, but obviously there’s more to do, and I’ve quadrupled that amount at least by now.

Without question the main draw of the expansion is its brand-new class, a rarity from Blizzard, the Spiritborn, which despite a reliance on animals, does not play like the Druid at all, and really has styles that are all over the place as you embody its Gorilla, Jaguar, Centipede and Eagle spirits, aka, tanking, slashing, poisoning and lightning-ing. Or a combination of them.

I picked Jaguar, and later shifted into a Gorilla secondary focus (you will generally pick two animals to combo). Jaguar’s mobility and power slashes made me very much think of some of my old Monk builds. Gorilla skills and innate powers let me tank enough damage to survive into higher difficulty levels. My build was essentially a version of ultimate spam, where I would leap into the fray as a fire Jaguar spirit, do an AOE attack and kill things. It starts with a 45 second cooldown but can reset on kills, and a capstone node lets you reduce your cooldowns by three seconds for every three core skills you execute. Combined with attack speed buffs and well, close to unlimited ultimates in sequence. And this is really the only build I had time to do in earnest.

Blizzard has totally rebuilt the difficulty system, eliminating World Tiers and replacing them with non-Torment and Torment difficulty levels. It is…hard to fully gauge how most players will experience this system. As reviewers playing on a totally separate build, we did not have any of our renown carry over, meaning no free skill points or paragon points and just four potions. Plus a shortage of stockpiled materials for upgrades (material requirements will be nerfed for the live build, Blizzard told us). This, combined with other broader changes to difficulty, meant that it took essentially the entire campaign for me to get off Normal, the first level. By the end I reached Torment 2 (out of 4) but it was slow going. A player jumping in with all their renown may have an easier time, but this does feel like this is going to be more of a slog on the whole in many ways. I experienced very few of Diablo’s feel-good large-scale power swings with amazing loot drops or transformative Paragon investment.

There is new content you’ll be playing within those difficulties outside of the campaign. One is Kurast Undercity, a timed run of a dungeon that lets you extend that time on special enemy kills, and rack up bonus loot through mini events within it. You can spend materials to upgrade the dungeons for more. It’s pretty fun, albeit it does feel like a slightly more complicated version of a normal rift, and not wildly different.

There is a seasonal event which I thought was pretty neat where you’ll follow a lumbering Realmwalker around, kill it, then go in a portal on its back to make your way through a dungeon where you can choose dedicated types of rewards, gear, materials, gold, etc. The season feels like it will be a bit on the lighter side as it’s launching alongside the expansion, but still.

One thing I did not get to test yet is the ultra-endgame Dark Citadel, a new 2-4 player co-op activity that is not terribly easy to test in a review build where your world is almost entirely solo. Weekly rewards are linked to its completion, and it seems like it will become a mainstay in the lategame. At least that’s the goal.

In terms of other significant new additions, there are now Mercenaries brought back as a concept, though they are all new, a tanky barbarian, a berserker cannibal, a demonic child and a bounty hunting archer. Their attacks and buffs can feel somewhat significant in combat, and you can have a “backup” one pop in for a singular move that triggers off of one of your own moves. And the quests to find each of them were pretty neat.

I have only just begun hunting these down, but Diablo 4 has now brought back runes. The system is a bit more streamlined than before, an activator that generates some sort of currency on use (“use an Ultimate”) and a result that spends that currency (“cast Rogue stun grenades” on any class). Legendary runes, that I do not have yet, will produce higher results. You are subbing out gem sockets in your armor for these, so they better be good. So far, gems feel like they’re the better call, though I imagine that’s not true later on. It feels a little basic and not as prestigious as the old system.

The campaign is fine. It didn’t really shock and awe me like the original Diablo 4 one, but there’s nothing it does explicitly poorly. Where the expansion shines is very much based on the Spiritborn class itself, as I think Blizzard has done something deeply difficult here in creating a unique class you may think compares to something familiar, but the further you get the deeper you can dig in and find some really cool stuff there.

This a long-term process as we figure out how all this comes together in the larger context of the game, and I will keep my coverage going accordingly. But reviewing what’s in front of me during this period, here we are.

Score: 8.5/10

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.