Diablo 4's Vessel of Hatred expansion is getting closer, and while one criticism levelled at the base game was a lack of endgame content, it appears the team at Blizzard has taken that to heart.

The studio revealed that a new Dark Citadel co-op experience, as well as the new Kurast Undercity activity, will be added as part of the update, and I spoke with Aislyn Hall, Systems Designer and Brent Gibson, Associate Game Director at Gamescom to discuss what each offers players.

Ways to play

Talking about learnings from Seasons 4 and 5, both well-received by the community, Hall said "I think something we've learned and seen reinforced in Season 5 is people want to see a lot of different activities."

"They wanna see a lot of ways to play the game, and not only is Kurast Undercity coming in, but we're also gonna have the Dark Citadel."

"We're just adding to that repertoire of different ways to play Diablo."

"Kurast Undercity is a time attack, multi-layered Dungeon", Gibson adds.

"You have the ability to set a tribute down at the beginning of the Dungeon and change the challenge you're going to see, so you can increase the risk and change the reward. We're learning stuff in Season 5 that can help impact that."

"You look at Kurast Undercity as that mid-to-late stage portion of gameplay," he adds.

"When you're really in kind of the heart of it, you want to have an activity that gets you up through your levels while providing the right types of rewards that you want to get. That's a really great way for players to control the outcomes that they're looking for in their build."

"Then we have the Dark Citadel, which is intended to serve the huge community growing around playing the game co-operatively."

"It's not how everybody plays it, but there is a community there for it. The role that plays is getting that cooperative community engaged, and it allows us to introduce things like group finder, so that not only is it good for that cooperative group, but now people can find other people to play all the other content that's already in the game."

Hall points to the differences in gameplay pacing between the two activities, too.

"Kurast Undercity is very frenetic, very momentum-based, and you want to be moving as quickly as possible, killing enemies to increase the amount of time you have in the Kurast Undercity," she explains.

"Then the Dark Citadel is very thoughtful. You need to be solving challenges that require a group, and thinking critically about how you're approaching situations. With both of those combined in Vessel of Hatred, there are a lot of new ways to play that we haven't seen in Diablo 4 yet."

Small party vibe

Another of the big additions in Vessel of Hatred is the arrival of Mercenaries. These companion characters can serve different roles of support, damage, or tank, while also offering a variety of skills your own class may lack.

"We've got a lot of players who play by themselves, and so when we look at the classes, every class has kind of a soft spot," Gibson explains.

"So we were like, 'Hey, what if you could hire a mercenary to come along with you that fills the gap in your build?'"

"Each of them kind of fills a different role that really helps you out with that, so if you're playing a squishier build, let's say you're playing a Sorceror, and you need someone to tank, you can have one there with you. When you're getting low on health, he can come in and soak some of that damage."

"It's like creating that small party vibe for players that don't play with other players often. But it's not limited to that, because you can also assign them as reinforcements. Which is something completely different than what you would have seen with Diablo 3."

"Even if we were playing together, I can assign Mercenaries to be reinforcements, and have them come in under certain conditions. So, instead of them following me around, and I get that low damage, the Barbarian comes in real quick, throws up the shield, takes a little bit of that damage, and then he gets off-screen."

"There's a lot of customization too on the context that you can bring them in as reinforcements," Hall adds.

"So, beyond even just having the mercenary that fits your build well, you can also ensure that whatever your reinforcement's doing when they come in is perfectly timed."

For more on our conversation with the team, be sure to check out what the future could hold post-Vessel of Hatred, as well as why the team still talks about Reaper of Souls a decade after it launched.