Diablo IV Open Beta Preview – A new heir to the action RPG crown?

thesixthaxis.com:

With years of updates since it was released almost eleven years ago, Diablo III is still one of the best examples of its genre. Challengers to its title have come and faded into the background, but now we’re on the cusp of a full sequel. At one point there were doubts about the form that Diablo IV might take – would it be riddled with microtransactions, for example? – but after playing this past weekend’s beta, there’s just a few issues to iron out before we could declare it a true heir to the throne.

The intro cutscene is as stunningly gorgeous as you’d expect from Blizzard, setting the stage with the return of Lilith, the Daughter of Hatred (i.e. the daughter of the demon Mephisto), to Sanctuary. It’s delightfully dark, and not just literally. The tone is grim, what with all the corpses and blood rituals and whatnot. Most importantly, Lilith doesnt monologue and tell you her plans like enemies in the previous game – looking at you, Belial. What’s here is much more interesting and subtle than any plot points in the previous game.

This darkness seeps into the rest of the game as well. Diablo 3 might have had plenty of blood and gore, but it was visually brighter than the previous games in the series, initially earning Blizzard some criticism for making it look a little cartoony and lighter, more like World of Warcraft, than the intense grimdark broodiness for which the series was better known. Diablo 4 is a definite step back towards this original aesthetic. The world feels bleak, whether it’s the hopeless attitude of some quest-givers’ voices, the fact that you’re almost immediately betrayed upon starting the game, or that sometimes side quests are acquired from a person using their dying breath to warn of a nearby demon.