It’s become a fact of life in the modern age of gaming that publishers will release games in a wide variety of states that vary from “needs tweaking” to “borderline unplayable.” Having been gaming since the mid ’80s and realizing I’d wasted my precious birthday money on a few gray cartridges filled with boring games that would never be able to be fixed, that’s something I have wildly mixed feelings on.
On the one hand, it means we end up with a bunch of groan-inducing day-one releases that could have used a lot more time in the development oven, filled with bugs, glitches, and balancing issues that can sully even the most highly anticipated games’ reputations right out of the stating gate. On the other, the ability to patch a game after its release gives developers the chance to actually listen to their players, pore over their feedback, and see how they can make their games more enjoyable for everyone.
So I say, with caution and obviously without having gotten my hands on it yet, that both of those things may be true for the second season of Diablo 4 and the 1.2.0 Build patch coming October 17.
Y’all, Diablo 4 has been an absolute mess. It’s possibly the biggest disappointment in gaming to have come out in 2023, and that’s even taking into account all the criticism that Starfield has been receiving as of late (and I’ve had a few gripes myself on that topic). From voice chat not working, graphical bugs giving the player a sparkle-tastic shadow, and login queues not even letting players access the game they paid good money for, the launch was a bit of a disaster. A lot of the problems like this are more understandable on PC, when the quality of your gaming experience could be tied to a number of issues with how current and well-built your machine is, but everything I’ve just discussed is a list of complaints from people playing Diablo 4 on console, which just shouldn’t happen.
Adding to those issues, there’s been a slew of others that are intentionally tied into the game by design, so it doesn’t even matter what platform you’ve been playing on. Players are still grinding and dumping massive tons of gold for gear that ends up being utterly useless, classes are continuing to experience balancing issues, and don’t even get me started all the problems with horses.
Even as of late, there’s been quality control issues in the descriptions of items and quests, with confusing familial relations, misspelled monster names, and even random bits of code or file names going where the correct text should. That’s far from a comprehensive list, but those have been some pretty big problems.
Still, I have to give Blizzard credit, because it feels like the developers have been making a concentrated effort to improve the game. They may not have a fix for everything just yet, but the incoming patch is massive, with more than 150 changes designed to improve the gaming experience, and that’s not even counting the hefty balancing tweaks to character classes and the absolute flood of general bug patches.
Basics like auto-run and the ability to mark items as favorites are so obvious and prevalent in other games that it’s a wonder we had to wait for them, but at least they’re on the way! Enchantment prices are being balanced out to be more fair (and probably a lot less costly in the long run) and mounts won’t randomly slow down, get stuck on terrain, or phase through barriers, which clears up two of the biggest categories of gripes that I’ve been hearing from fans over the past several months.
As far as changes to skills and items go, there are so many changes coming that it’s hard to single a lot of them out, because players with different classes and builds will be looking for different changes, but it seems like there’s something to make life better for just about everybody. Seriously, the comprehensive list, straight from the pen of Blizzard, takes a long time to get through, but the new Legendary Aspects look particularly fun—who doesn’t enjoy quicker movement and the ability to dole out more damage?
And all of that is without even mentioning the Season of Blood, the story content being added for this season. Personally, I’m still a little played out on vampires (thanks for that, Redfall), but the addition of new endgame content, five new fresh bosses to fight, and some nifty new vampiric powers should get a lot of people excited.
A lot of games have come a long what since terrible launches. Cyberpunk 2077 went from a walking punchline to an almost universally-beloved, immersive RPG experience. No Man’s Sky took a boring, empty universe and (eventually) filled it with the kind of plot and customization that a sandbox of its size deserves. And while there will always be disappointing releases like Saint’s Row (2022) that never really get better (and tank an entire studio), I hope that Diablo 4 is moving in a positive direction, and while I’m not immediately sold that Blizzard will be able to elevate it to the level of those other games, Season 2 certainly looks like a big step in the right direction.
