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| Bone Robot as Diablo 2 cover |
Sometimes you know in your heart of hearts that a game will be utter shit but you have to give it a try anyway just to see if you still got the knack for shit detection. Like when you know for a fact you just took a no-wipe dump but you have to wipe once to verify. After all the bullshit they pulled with Diablo 3 I had almost no hope for Blizzard. BUT Diablo 2 is one of my favorite games ever, so there was a little dingleberry of hope that I let seep into my mind like a damn fool. When Diablo 4 was first released some friends convinced me to give it a try, and I quit on them after 90 minutes and refunded that garbage quick, fast, and in a damn hurry. Diablo 2 Resurrected is good for two simple reasons: it's just Diablo 2 from 2000, and it's playable on Xbox. That's the only real reason I like a remaster. They changed nearly nothing and now I can play it on console. But it's still not really needed because the original still works and is playable. Diablo 2 Resurrected had me in a Diablo mood and I noticed Diablo 4 was on GamePass so I downloaded it again. It's way different now. There was no campaign to speak of. I made a new character, and they simply started me off in the middle of a town and I was doing some battlepass seasonal quest line. It was really jarring and annoying. Now the other reason I will play a game I know is horrible is that it's free (in the way GamePass is free [it's not, but I can experience the game without any risk]), and that I want to have better knowledge of it so I can more effectively hate on it.
The problem I had with it on release was the same problem I have with it now: Blizzard is a shell of it's former self and they don't know how to make good games anymore. I don't get why people aren't as pissed off as I am that these two-timing dickbags are smearing shit on the good Diablo name. I guess it doesn't actually have a good name anymore. They're 50/50 now. Diablo 2 is old enough to buy me cigarettes now and Diablo 3 and 4 are the black tar-infested lungs of a lifelong smoker. However, the Diablo name was built on the first two games, and since then, they've been trying their damndest to tank it's reputation, name, and experience, just like they did with the company itself. I'm surprised there isn't a quest where you have to sexually harass a female main character.
Blizzard simultaneously wants to distance themselves from the old Diablos, and aren't smart enough to come up with a single good idea on their own. The old leveling and loot systems get gutted entirely. "We don't need those stinky Diablo ideas!" they say, as they climb out of the machine in The Matrix that teaches you ideas instantly that is set to the "MMO-ify" learning program. "Those old Diablo ideas sucked! Here's our new shitty systems. Also every monster and boss is from Diablo 2! We couldn't dream up a new enemy type in 25 years." I want to rip my goddamn ass hair out. You start the game and it's so foreign to Diablo in it's essence, they should have called it "Diablo: World of Warcraft." Then they bombard you with things they stole from Diablo 2 because those things are so cool that they are still thought about today. You have the same classes, so you pick Barbarian. Of course I remember loving my Diablo 2 Barbarian. What an experience when I first unlocked the now-classic skill Whirlwind. Then you level up your Diablo 4 Barbarian and you unlock the Whirlwind skill, except it's not cool anymore, that move is old as piss now. Remember the Ancients from the Diablo 2 expansion? The cool Barbarians you fight to get into the Worldstone Keep? Yea they're just a skill now for your Barbarian. They show up and do their signature moves from Diablo 2. This is again cool because you remember it. Remembering a thing from an old game is actually good game design. Then you fight the council members from Travincal, and the bosses of this stupid season quest thingy are the ones from Mephisto's chamber. Yea, the ones we killed in Diablo 2 on the way to kill Mephisto. You fight them again, and they cast Hydra at you, just like they did 25 years ago! But this time it feels like you're playing a meaningless arcade game designed to steal your money. And that's because you are!
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| Behind-the-scenes shots of Diablo 4's development |
The procedural dungeons in Diablo 2 were cool because the world felt cool. It was always the Durance of Hate you were going through. You were always on your way to Mephisto, but the layout was changed. It was neat, it was interesting, it was well thought out and well built. The procedural dungeons in Diablo 4 feel procedural. You go through "generic shithole number 5," and sometimes it's generic gothic schlock and sometimes it's another Diablo 2 ripoff like a jail. It's nutty to me and frankly kooky that they are stealing all of these ideas and then wiping their asses with them. They can't even steal right. It's completely emblematic of their entire company's culture that they rip off successful ideas wholesale and can't even implement them properly because they don't understand them on a deeper level. They don't know how or why these processes were successful or why people like them, so they don't value them. Fucking numbskulls take a premier idea like random dungeon generation and remove it's soul. I can't think of a more apt comparison than when in Diablo 1 the hero tried to contain Diablo's essence in their own body and became corrupted by it. It doesn't really work, but I'm smart and cool, so drawing that parallel is an elite maneuver you wish you thought of.
You no longer have to manage stat points, skill points, an inventory, or even playing the game. It's bogged down with hundreds of collectibles, transmogs, affixes, bullshit, crap, gibberish, junk, and clutter. My favorite thing about Diablo 2 was navigating all the season pass level up menus so I can get my quest reward after closing 3 rifts. The game is designed to be so easy and placid that you keep getting unlocks, and it tricks your stupid brain into thinking you're succeeding. Not mine, I'm too smart. But you're a little goblin so when the shiny colors show up on the ground you think you've accomplished something. It's not designed to reward you or respect your time, it's designed to keep you playing, having to dump hours into it to get your next reward, with the intent to sink it's hooks deep enough that you'll start paying for special rewards tiers. It's so grimy I had to play Gran Turismo and listen to The Beach Boys to get my head straightened out.
The world is no longer separate instances of difficulties with Acts, its now a giant open world. You can be level 1 and have a level 60 person be fighting the same enemies as you. It's so discordant to be fighting the exact same recycled monster as a level 30 person when I'm level 4 and we're doing equal damage. They achieve this by making all of the enemies dependent on your own level, effectively neutering the leveling system in all but name. Sure your level number goes up, but nothing is really happening. It's the same problem MMOs have, where the main game from level 1 to max level is so monotonous and boring, and once you max out you realize that's basically to learn the world and all of the concepts of the game for first timers and to build a character. Humans have 100 billion brain cells but if you have at least 15 you can very easily realize this system is bunk, fake, and dumb. It removes all urgency, immediacy, and importance from leveling. It's the coward's way to balance a game. Instead of making the enemies strong and having you be challenged and have to get better gear and skills to overcome it, you can just beat anything at any time because it's around your level and they throw legendary gear at you like Mardi Gras beads to a D Cup.
Then you have TOO much access to everything. The way in which you are limited in games creates unique items and creativity. In Diablo 4 you can just put any weapon affix you want on any other weapon. You have unlimited sockets, you can craft gems. This is all factored into their skinner box reward system to always have another useless trinket get drip fed to you to keep you coming back. Continuing to play Diablo 4 after identifying the existence of this system is like quitting your job after winning "Free Ticket" on a scratch off. Compare this to Diablo 2 where you have a single quest to socket an item. You have to find gems and upgrade them. It made specific enemies and mobs of enemies worthwhile. The way Diablo 4 makes everything available all the time removes the point of playing. When you complete quests a giant chest opens and a million things pop out so once again the player feels like they are a pirate or something. YAY! I'm having so much fun. I hate finding valuable items in chests. I like my systems to be long, drown-out processes. C'mon guys, let's go do a generic, hollow, vacant, derivative dungeon 500 times so I can get enough materials to perfectly socket a completely sanitized and personality-less weapon. Lest ye walk the plank. Sure, Diablo 2 had a grind because the item drop rate was low, but the game itself was fun to play, and when you finally got a cool item, it was memorable. I still remember the names of unique items and sets after 25 years. They were born classic, they had flavor, they had swagger. So much swagger Diablo 4 is still name dropping them after all these years because they can't think of anything cool on their own. The players obviously remember and love the old shit, but it's fucking weird for the developers to be re-hashing it all. It would be like if Steph Curry started yelling out "Kobe!" when he took a three in-game.
Nobody else is talking about this. I feel like the gaming world has been taken over by people who enjoy this type of game. They don't want to be challenged, or feel like they are in control, or accomplishing something, or even playing something fun. They want to dump hours into a mindless task because they have not thought critically about it for a single iota. The online voices who complain about this style of games now will instead say "oh yea they don't release new content fast enough. I already put 700 hours into the new season in a week and I'm bored. I paid for the season pass and I'm already max level. I farted in my pants yesterday and it made my undies brown but I haven't changed them." We need to demand better from these corporations. People say vote with your wallet, but I will go five steps further. Vote with a barbed wire bat. Let's form a mob and march on the developer's house. We don't want to hurt you...we just want to talk, in the Cosby Suite.
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