Diablo 4 avoids the FOMO pressure of live-service games

polygon.com:

You would be forgiven for being a little tired of Diablo 4; after about 200 hours over the last year, between betas and the preseason launch in June, I know I am.

But in this age of games that go on forever, being exhausted by a game I like is normally something I’m willing to overlook in order to gain an advantage against my digital foes. Yet for all its modern bells and whistles, Diablo 4 has managed to avoid a “feature” that its competition all but thrives on: FOMO.

If you’re outside of the MMO or live-service game space, continuing to play a game that you’re no longer enjoying probably sounds strange, but allow me to explain. In games like Destiny 2, Warframe, World of Warcraft, and many others, part of the draw is that you’re earning items or rewards that will somehow improve your ability to succeed down the line. This can result in FOMO — or the fear that, if I take a break, I’ll miss out on something, and that could diminish my experience in the long run. What if I don’t get a powerful raid weapon or trinket? Will I even be able to compete without it when I come back? I find myself asking those questions all the time when I play Destiny 2, and I still haven’t finished leveling in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight because I’ve already missed too much.

With live-service games and MMOs, it’s not uncommon to live in a binary world where you’re either grinding a game every day, or you’ve quit and are too far behind to ever come back. But Diablo 4 eschews that all-too-familiar FOMO dance because of its seasonal resets — an initially controversial, returning feature that caused some new Diablo fans to panic during the preseason.

Diablo 4’s reset system means that every three months, your character returns to level 1