Hello again! Time has come around once more. You might have noticed a handful of reviews for the Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred expansion going live around now, yet unfortunately we’re not among them (and neither are our friends at VG247 or Rock Paper Shotgun).
As usual, a few standard notes are in order: we truly stand by what we say when we mention that we’re not entitled to review code—because it’s a courtesy, not a right. In the end, decisions about who gets review copies and precisely when those copies arrive are entirely up to the publisher. After all, it’s their release, and they control the terms of any early access.
That said, we also have an obligation to keep our audience up to date. In this case, we did receive code earlier this week (unlike our linked sites). However, we were told it wouldn’t unlock until launch day, which is set for 8th October. Then, rather strangely, we found out that the actual review code wouldn’t be issued until Monday, the 7th.
It’s somewhat confusing, no question. Still, that’s how video games go—ultimately, it isn’t a serious problem. The good news is that we will, without doubt, get access at some stage, and when it does happen, you can expect our usual deep-dive coverage (just a bit later than we originally expected).
In the meantime, feel free to revisit our first review of Diablo 4 from last summer. We gave it four stars, describing it as “a designer’s game at heart, constructed on intricacy and depth,” before adding that “a sense of fearful overcompensation holds it back.” If you’d rather go deeper in other ways, we also have a range of detailed Diablo 4 guides, plus Alexis’ exceptional account of her time with the initial post-launch season, Season of the Malignant, and her thoughts on the larger live-service model as a whole. She put it like this:
“That I mindlessly push through my trivial video game tasks against some of the most beautifully illuminated landscapes in the series does a disservice to the environment artists who dedicated years to this project. Diablo 4 doesn’t have to be this way, but to be honest, I am weak and lazy, and the mind-numbing routine of busywork has morphed into a disturbingly easy form of procrastination from actual work.
“There’s an entire decade, at least, of Diablo 4 lined up and awaiting us. Yet, I cannot envision a future where the long-term player experience improves without a fundamental shift in how we interact with live-service games, as well as how those games subtly address the compulsive psychology embedded in their design. This may be the most stunning depiction of Sanctuary to date, but in true human fashion, it has become a hell of my own creation.”
Since then, Diablo 4 has received some notable changes—we can’t wait to dig into them!