Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred review:

When Diablo 4 first launched in June last year, I heavily praised its tantalising class-building system, rip-roaring combat and devilishly delightful tale that had me yearning for more. Throughout five seasons of live service updates, the game has had its ups and downs. From loot system alterations to progression frictions, it feels as though Blizzard has spent the best part of a year trying to claw its way back to the high point it initially started from.

Despite occasional fumbles, the Vessel of Hatred expansion shows that Blizzard still has an extremely strong vision for Diablo 4. It injects a healthy shot of adrenaline into the game, with an exhilarating new class and an intriguing extension to the story that already had me enthralled.

Narrative revelations might feel a little thin on the ground compared to what players might be expecting. However, throw in several excellent new ways to slay demons and grind for loot, and they’ll probably be having too much fun to care.

In the pursuit of Hatred

As you’ll likely know from that harrowing, limb-splitting CG trailer released earlier this year, Vessel of Hatred is very much a continuation of the base game’s story. We pick up on the trail of our companion Neyrelle, who’s transporting the soul of Mephisto to the jungle-infested land of Nahantu in an attempt to destroy him.

If you’re thinking that running off with the soul of the Lord of Hatred on your lonesome is a bad idea, you’re not the only one. Many of the themes in the expansion’s story revolve around what it means to work as a team, and how asking for help will always leave you stronger than suffering alone. There’s a surprisingly heartfelt and uplifting core to the narrative woven here, which caught me by surprise given the rest of Diablo 4’s particularly oppressive tone.

I particularly enjoyed the new characters that Vessel of Hatred introduces, all of which are charismatic enough to want to hang out with. That bodes well, given you can now recruit many of them as mercenary companions - a feature I’ll get on to later.

Whether questing with a tribal shaman or slaying demons alongside massive shield-wielding warriors, each of the new characters feels believable and necessary. I particularly enjoyed the arcs that many of them go through in the few hours you spend with them, with the impact of their choices feeling reasonable given Mephisto’s influence on the world around them.

My only complaint with the story delivered in Vessel of Hatred is that, while self-contained, feels like it only moves the needle ever so slightly on what came before. Given what we’ve seen in trailers, you might expect the stakes of Sanctuary to feel completely under threat by the end of the expansion. Instead, we’re left in the dust of an end boss fight that doesn’t stack up half as well to our battle with Lillith, and a small glimpse at another unresolved cliffhanger.

I love that Blizzard is clear that it wants Diablo 4 to go on for as long as it can. I’m enthralled by its story, and could easily play another 20 to 30 hours of its campaign. However, waiting for over a year to see the tale furthered by a single act feels a little slim.

Primal Instinct

In addition to the campaign is an equally excellent new class, which completely won me over within a few hours of playing. Spiritborn characters invoke the powers of the animal-themed Spirit Guardians, and you’re able to build out some truly wild builds with the tools at your disposal.

After only a few levels, I was using Jaguar-imbued basic attacks to build up fury, which exponentially buttressed my attack speed. I’d then pair that with an eagle-powered suction tornado to group up large crowds of enemies, only to poison them all en mass with an AOE sprew attack from my summonable centipede. For the escaping stragglers, I’d reserve a couple of electrical spinning blades, rocketing around my character in a deadly spiral.

That’s just one satisfying example of how the Spiritborn is perhaps Diablo’s most malleable yet. Sure, you can completely spec it out to be entirely Centipede or Gorilla-based if that’s your style. It’s almost like four classes in one, in that regard. But the new class is at its best when you get a little creative with it, mixing and matching spirit themes to create builds that are equally fatal as they are addictive to play.

There are now even more ways in which you can augment your gear with the new Runewords mechanic, too. Found in the world and craftable at certain vendors, items with two sockets can be equipped with cause-and-effect runes. For example, you might want to imbue your weapon with a deadly spit of toxin, with it charged up every time you evade.

While the effects are only slight in the early hours of the expansion, I can easily see this becoming yet another facet of buildcrafting for players to obsess over in pursuit of that ‘perfect build’.

Lone Wolf

Diablo is typically best experienced online with friends, but I’ve always played it as a solo player. As such, it’s to my delight that Blizzard has delivered a plethora of new ways for players like me to enjoy the game even more with Vessel of Hatred.

The first addition is the new Mercenary system, which lets you recruit an NPC to tag along on your demon-slaying adventures through Sanctuary. There are four to choose from, each with their own questline to recruit them.

Each of the characters has their own unique playstyle, and so can complement pretty much any build that you might have in mind. The more you quest with them, the more Rapport you’ll build, which can then be spent on unlocking nodes in their own skill tree to be specced out as you like. They’re exceptionally helpful too, having a noticeable impact on your performance in combat. It’s deeply satisfying to see your companion tearing through monsters alongside you, especially when you’ve built them up in a way that supports your own character.

Mercenaries disappear when you join a party of friends, which is understandable, but you can also recruit them as a ‘Reinforcement’, too. While they don’t follow you around the whole time, they’ll spawn in whenever you perform a chosen action, like performing a certain ability or becoming vulnerable. While they only have one attack in this form, it’s still an exciting way of making NPC characters have more of an impact outside of traditional main quests. As a solo player, I particularly enjoyed having another on-screen presence to help me wade through the extensive bloodbaths of Sanctuary.

There’s also the new Kurast Undercity dungeon event, which essentially gives the game a roguelike structure not too dissimilar to Hades. Intended as a late-game method of grinding out XP and loot, it’s also an excellent new way for solo players to tackle dungeons and bosses in a time attack style.

Entering the Undercity sees you ploughing through three stages of monster-infested levels, each with a time limit in play. Defeating larger enemies buys you a few seconds onto the timer, and you’ll need to complete objectives before advancing to the next stage. It’s a frantic dance that adds an impending sense of doom to the already fantastic dungeon crawling that Diablo is known for.

You can even influence the rewards you get by offering up items before entering, so you can really tailor the grind to exactly what you need at the given moment. I quite happily lost several hours to this addictive mode, building up easy Rapport with my Mercenaries and enjoying all the good loot that came with it - who even needs friends, anyway?

If you do want to team up with mates, then you might also enjoy the Dark Citadel - another late-game feature that promises more puzzle-based dungeon crawls in a co-op setting. I wasn’t able to test this feature out myself in the review period, but even without it still felt as though the sheer amount of content on offer in Vessel of Hatred is worth its asking price.

The Verdict

Vessel of Hatred offers more of what already made Diablo 4 an exceptional game. Its story is well crafted, and while it doesn’t push the needle as far as I’d like in terms of narrative progression, it only left me more invested in the world of Sanctuary and its characters.

The new Spiritborn class is a delight to play with, offering up almost endless new ways to take down monsters. Combine that with several new ways to level and enough new dungeons to keep you entertained for hours on end, it’s a must-purchase for anyone remotely interested in Blizzard’s current rendition of a hellscape dungeon-crawler.

4.5/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.