Building upon legacy franchises can be advantageous, but also incredibly difficult.

Industry staples like DOOM, Halo, Call of Duty, and many dozens more all run into the same problems at times. How do you stay true to the essence of the things that made the franchises successful in the first place, while building something new for today's times?

I feel like Diablo 4 has gone through some of those struggles across its development, although with its "Lord of Hatred" expansion released a few weeks ago, a newfound confidence and focus has emerged from Blizzard — and the payload is immense.

I've sunk hundreds of hours into Diablo 4, seen some of its worst seasons, and also indulged in some of its best. The story remained solid throughout the base game and into Vessel of Hatred as well. The core gameplay loop has always been fun, but Blizzard has struggled to figure out how to make its endgame more varied and rewarding.

In Lord of Hatred, Blizzard finally has the foundation of a formula that should carry the game to new heights. The art direction is still absolutely immaculate, too. But what will stick with me beyond everything else is the story. Lord of Hatred's story delivery proves that Blizzard can still deliver big in this department when the time comes — all expansions combined, and while not perfect, Diablo 4, for me, now sits among Blizzard's best ever games.

Diablo IV 'Lord of Hatred' review: Visuals, art, and music

If there's one area where Blizzard has consistently delivered industry-leading excellence, it's in the art department. Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred continues that trend with bells on.

Set in the isles of Skovos, Blizzard gives players a reprieve from the depths of hell and the dark swamps of Hawezar with a landscape that looks refreshingly Mediterranean. White alabaster towns and coastal villages plucked straight from the Greek coast to magma-blasted climbs of Philios — the heartlands of the Amazons show up amazingly well in Lord of Hatred.

Where Lord of Hatred delivers above all else is arguably in its Hollywood-busting pre-rendered cinematics. Blizzard has long been known for its uncanny leadership in this area, but Lord of Hatred takes some of these scenes to dizzying new heights. The sheer scale and soul-drowning threat of Mephisto emerges with utterly unnerving confidence in these sequences. If there are awards for this sort of thing, Blizzard should win all of them.

The music and sound treatment help elevate these scenes beyond the pale, too. There's a reason fans clamor for Blizzard's art team to break out into Netflix territory. The sequences here are too good to describe in words and screenshots alone, so I scarcely dare even try. I'd argue it's worth experiencing Lord of Hatred for the cinematics alone.

There's a lot of quite clever, more subtle (and sometimes less subtle) art history nods throughout Diablo 4 as well, that art students might appreciate. The religious overtones of Diablo's world have been ever-present, but they are amplified in Lord of Hatred owing to the plot threads therein. From references to the stunning frescoes of the Cistine Chapel to obscure esotericism, Éliphas Zahed, seems to get referenced at times, giving Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred a timeless quality that indulges and celebrates its inspirations.

Indeed, the falsely prophetic nature of Akarat possessed by Mephisto is a story that echoes throughout history and, some might argue, carries some uncanny relevance in today's times.

Diablo IV 'Lord of Hatred' review: Story (no spoilers)

One of the things that has often bugged me about modern AAA games is the under-investment in quality story writing.

As AAA developers increasingly prioritize endgame systems, microtransactions, and endless gameplay loops (and Diablo is by no means an exception here), delivering high-quality, memorable campaigns seems to have increasingly taken a back seat. I can say without a doubt that is not the case with Diablo 4.

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred follows directly after Vessel of Hatred, which told a decent story in its own right, but it was unashamedly designed to set up the big payload, which is what we have here. There's no other way to describe the most bombastic and memorable moments in Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred. With Diablo 4, Blizzard absolutely delivered in a way we haven't seen in years.

It's hard to go over exactly what makes Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred so special without straying into spoiler territory, so I won't. But it pulls no punches whatsoever and leans heavily into the bleakness of life in Sanctuary, much like the previous entries. The difference here is the impact on characters we've been following since the game launched back in 2023. The player character, "The Wanderer," is on a warpath to finally catch up with Mephisto.

All who remain "alive" in this hunt have a big role to play, for better or worse, with twists and turns, absolutely grisly scenes, and tentpole performances that are wholly deserving of major mainstream awards.

Ralph Ineson is absolutely fantastic as Lorath and will be remembered as one of the franchise's greatest heroes and characters. Steve Blum as Mephisto is utterly unnerving, and his delivery of Mephisto's demonic proclamations is truly mesmerizing.

Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred very cleanly wraps up the saga of Hatred. Blizzard resisted temptations to stray into "stay tuned for next time!!" setting up future expansions or games ... and left us with a conclusion that is as painfully evocative as it is satisfying. Lord of Hatred is absolute magic, and even if you're not a typical ARPG fan, you should experience Diablo 4 for the story alone.

Diablo IV 'Lord of Hatred' review: Gameplay and Endgame

I've sunk hundreds of hours into Diablo 4 and its expansions so far, but I've not played as attentively or passionately as I have with Lord of Hatred's present endgame.

Lord of Hatred adds not one, but two new character classes, which seems to follow Blizzard's present mantra of over-delivering upon expectations. The sword-and-board Paladin arrives, wielding holy magic power and magical hammers to smite demons and other miscreants of all stripes. The Warlock turns those same demons into weapons, siphoning their power and subjugating their will to become powerful, unwilling allies.

The Paladin class is as fun to play as it is flashy. What really struck me about the Paladin class was its sound design, ironically, loud bells and chimes as you're slamming huge maces into demons is restlessly cathartic. The Warlock, by comparison, is all about reckless, volatile power. Plumes of shadow magic or violent, screen-spanning explosions devastate enemies, and at the high end, can one-shot some of the game's most difficult bosses. One of its spells is called "Apocalypse" for a reason.

What really struck a chord with me this time around is the endgame. This is the first Diablo season since launch where I've felt compelled to level multiple classes and experiment with multiple builds. The variety is exemplary, and accessing high-end builds is still a challenge, but nowhere near the "painful" feeling of previous seasons.

Diablo 4 revamps all the class trees to make skills a little more relevant than they were previously. Many endgame builds skipped over skill nodes and went straight for passives, pouring as much power as possible into a couple of synergistic spells. Diablo 4 makes all skills a lot more meaningful with more points to play with, although bugs with certain synergies and clear balance issues make some abilities feel a little weak. They end up overlooked as a result, reducing the amount of variety at the super high-end. Until then, though, you can easily clear up to Torment X with a large variety of spells and builds, even weird self-made off-meta stuff like I tend to use.

Indeed, I've had a ton of fun ignoring build guides and exploring my own builds and synergies this season. I've hit walls, though, at times. Sometimes it feels like the game has some serious balance issues, where Unique items that should boost the damage and synergies of certain spells simply don't seem to work.

Blizzard has been working to bug fix as of writing, and there are a decent clip of bugs ... my incredibly rare 3GA Harlequin Crest vanished out of the Horadric Cube on me this morning ... to say I'm devastated about it would be an understatement. But if you're not as stubborn as me, the variety of meta builds for endgame viability is fairly decent.

Speaking of the Cube, one thing I've also enjoyed this season is how much customization exists within the game's gear systems now. You can re-roll affixes on items with the Horadric Cube from previous games, and vastly customize and improve your gear to focus and hone your builds. Again, I've been a bit frustrated in situations where affixes don't seem to make a meaningful difference, but Blizzard does seem to have been addressing bugs with regard to this at a decent rate.

One thing that continues to bug me about Diablo 4 is the way bosses are balanced. Blizzard invests a lot in creating unique bosses with unique mechanics, arenas, and oftentimes, music. The bosses die in literal seconds, though, even world bosses, which makes no sense to me. Bosses should be memorable tent pole moments, rather than trivial loot pinatas. It should never be the case that a regular elite in a dungeon in the same tier is more powerful than the dungeon's literal boss. Conversely, the Uber Bosses in the same tier where you're one-shotting most other bosses are often so over-tuned that unless you're rolling a meta build that can one-hit kill them to avoid their barely-visible mechanics, you're probably going to have a bad time. Blizzard could do some serious fine-tuning here. A more rewarding curve that makes them feel less trivial while boosting the rewards should be the goal. One-shotting Torment XI world bosses is so miserably anticlimactic. Why bother designing the boss in the first place?

At least you can customize aspects of your endgame experience to that end now, though. The new War Plan system allows you to "level up" endgame activities. For example, you can boost the strength of bosses in exchange for extra chests. It's a bit of a grind to level them up, to say the least, but it's a fun and rewarding addition to the decent variety of endgame systems presently on offer.

War Plans also allow you to tailor what activities you do through endgame, giving you additional rewards and more "structure" as the variety of options continues to pile up.

Between Undercity, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, Infernal Hordes, heavily customizable gear, a vast variety of endgame builds, skills, spells, and options — Diablo 4's endgame is more rewarding than ever.

It's by no means flawless. There are certainly bugs and balance issues. I think it's strange that Strongholds play no real role in endgame. I mentioned my frustration with the way bosses are either over-tuned or under-tuned. And I'd like to see a greater emphasis on permanent seasonal rewards that even come close to the game's wallet-bustingly expensive microtransactions ... but they don't detract from the overall quality of the package.

Diablo 4's endgame is not perfect, but the overall gameplay loop is better than ever.

Diablo 4 has been a clear and painstaking labor of love. Building upon expectations spanning decades is one of the game industry's most difficult and complicated tasks. Threading the needle of appealing to both old and potential new players, while staying true to the essence of Diablo, and finding relevance in today's diluted attention pool is incredibly tough. But Blizzard pulled it off here in a big way.

Like I said, Diablo 4 isn't perfect. It has a lot of small issues, but nothing that detracts from the whole in a big way. Diablo 4's story, especially, is something that will stick with me for a long, long time.

Honestly, I'm left wondering "what's next" more than ever for Diablo 4, which I now count among some of my favorite games of all time.

I feel like there's still so much untapped potential and room for improvement in Diablo 4 even now, and I'm eager to find out if it can reach even more impressive heights in the months and years to come. Indeed, this isn't a game I "want to stop playing" right now, and as picky as I am in 2026, that's no easy feat.

I believe history will be kind to Diablo 4, and even though I'm sure some corners of the internet would call it controversial, but if I put down my nostalgia glasses for a moment — I believe with my whole baneful heart that now with Lord of Hatred, Diablo 4 represents one of Blizzard's best ever games.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.