I’ve been looking forward to Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred but with cautious skepticism, and I’m glad to report that this expansion absolutely slaps and I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.
Specifically, one of my major concerns was that in Season 11 at least, the game was in a great place, and I felt like the list of changes coming with Lord of Hatred would lead to overhaul fatigue. Because my god, how many system overhauls have we gone through since base game launch?
Then, leading up to the eve of the launch, I felt the marketing was bordering on spoilery and revealing too much too soon about the campaign itself. Stripping away the joy of discovery, if you will.
I’m so happy to say I was incorrect on both of these points. The overhauls have finally completed the game, and despite the trailers, the best surprises lie in wait in the story campaign, completely untouched by the marketing machine. And I’m sure there are some surprises yet to come. This is Diablo 4 in its final, most flourishing form, and I’d like to think it has silenced the “D4 Bad” memes once and for all, at least for those who will stay awhile and listen.
This is how you do fan service
I can only imagine that at some point during development, someone in the room finally slammed their hands on the table and said, “For the love of god, let’s just give the people what they want.”
I can’t say much more than that without spoiling the integral moments, but there are certain ups and downs as the story develops that really felt like Blizzard had been listening to its community. That’s not to say the story is perfect, but I completed it feeling completely satisfied, unlike at the end of Vessel of Hatred. Where I didn’t even realize the ending was the ending.
That said, Vessel of Hatred still works beautifully as a bridge between the base game and this DLC. If you’re playing everything back‑to‑back without the long wait between releases, the narrative thread is far clearer, and the overall experience bears more weight.
What surprised me most is how confidently the story leans into themes of family and complicated relationships. You don’t expect that level of emotional nuance in a demon‑blasting ARPG, yet Blizzard committed to it, and it pays off beautifully. The campaign was far more impactful than I expected.
Skovos is breathtaking and intriguing to explore, I don’t want to leave
❌️ Friendship ended with Cerrigar✅️ Now Temis is my best friend pic.twitter.com/c4slcw3U0YMay 2, 2026
We’ve waited a long time to visit the Skovos region, and it was worth the wait. A complete 180 from the swamp fatigue of Nahantu, you can gallop around on your mount from lava scarred lands to Ancient Greek-inspired coastal vistas. The towns feel alive. I wanted to eavesdrop on every NPC conversation, and there really are some of the funniest conversations going on that many players will just zoom on by.
The whole region feels alive, and surprisingly less downtrodden than other regions, considering it’s also just as demon-infested as the mainland. Temis, as a new city hub, is also my new ‘favorite’ city, and I refuse to teleport anywhere else. The Mercenaries have moved in here; you can access both The Pit and the Undercity, and with the newly added War Plans and Horadric Cube, why would you visit anywhere else? Ok I sound like their tourist board now…
Cerrigar, it was good while it lasted, but I will never darken your doorstep again!
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The Horadric Cube and Talisman system breathe new life into the loot grind
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With Lord of Hatred comes a whole suite of new loot‑driven systems to play with, the two headline additions being the Horadric Cube and Talisman Set Charms.
I’m still digging into all the nitty gritty of the Cube and what it can do, but even at a surface level it’s already wildly powerful. I’ve used it to turn a piece of absolute trash gear into a Unique dagger that carried my build straight into Torment 4.
It essentially lets you smash together junk into something better rather than just salvaging everything, while also giving you new ways to tweak and add affixes outside of the existing Tempering and Masterworking systems.
Talismans, meanwhile, offer a fresh loot chase that feels exciting without becoming exhausting. Chasing a juicy set bonus is fun on its own, but the real win is that duplicates can be converted in the Cube into another piece from the same set. It keeps the hunt moving without the usual frustrations of useless drops.
Together, these systems complement each other and feel as if they were designed in tandem rather than by completely different teams. All of this, coupled with the removal of other busy work like potions and incense, means that despite the new additions, everything actually feels more simplified.
War Plans are just awesome
It was genuinely hard, based on the Developer Streams alone, to picture how War Plans would actually function once you hit the endgame. Now that I’m there, though, I love them. I especially love the sheer speed they bring to the loop.
The devs clearly took “town is lava” to heart when designing this mode. You can bounce from activity to activity with a single click, earning rewards while also progressing each activity’s own mini skill tree, letting you tailor the experience to your playstyle.
While it works brilliantly when you’re playing solo, it does need some refinement in group play. Right now, your party members can help you complete your War Plans and earn some rewards, but they can’t actually see which ones you’ve selected. That means communication becomes essential and frankly I don’t always want to get on voice chat. Ideally, I’d love to see the whole group pulled around the map together, but I can imagine how tricky that is to balance.
Even so, in its current form it’s fun, fast, rewarding, and absolutely workable. I’m excited to see how Blizzard iterates on it, because the foundation is already strong, it just needs a few tweaks to feel good in groups.
The skill tree feels a lot more intuitive now, and revamps have been made across all classes, opening up build diversity massively. Two players can be running a Sorcerer and be running builds that make them feel like two completely different classes. My whole group is playing Warlock (predictably), but we are using vastly different playstyles.
And speaking oft Warlock, while you’d expect this and Paladin to be topping the meta, that’s not actually the case. Sure, they are incredibly powerful, but the current meta boasts a mix of the new guys AND Sorcerers, Necros, and Barbarians at the top of the Maxroll tier list right now. That’s bound to move around a lot, but it’s great to see that other classes haven’t been left behind in pay-to-win dust.
So what’s next for Diablo 4?
Diablo 4 is quite simply the biggest and best expansion the franchise has seen since Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. Yet, no matter how good the game becomes, there is a subset of the player base that will never come back, forever tethered to the “D4 BAD” narrative. It’s unfortunate, because they’re missing out, but it’s also understandable. There are so many great games to play that many don’t want to have to return to old territory, regardless of the new wallpaper.
So, where does Blizzard go from here? Will they double down on this rock-solid foundation with another expansion, or will they take the lessons learned here and pivot toward a much more marketable Diablo 5? Whatever the answer, I’m looking forward to seeing what on earth they have in store for us at Blizzcon this year.
P.S. Can someone PLEASE figure out where the Cow Level is?
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