Diablo 3 review: Diablo III Review — IGN — Mitspielen — Vampire Live in München

Diablo III Review — IGN

Diablo 3

By Anthony Gallegos

Updated: Aug 17, 2021 12:53 am

Posted: May 14, 2012 6:03 pm

Twelve years is a long time to wait for a game, but the Diablo faithful have had to do just that since developer Blizzard released Diablo II in 2000. Since then people have leveled and looted for years and gradually mastered its gameplay systems. Blizzard too has learned a lot over the last decade, and has wisely applied these lessons to the design of Diablo III. At its most basic level, Diablo III is still largely the same game, but with flexible skill systems that encourage you to constantly reshape your hero into whatever you need them to be. In the end, Diablo’s classic, loot-driven formula where you pick from a few pre-determined classes and level them up proves to be incredibly addictive the third time around.

Some people love Diablo III for its story, and the third’s narrative is stronger than its predecessor, but still filled with clichés and predictable twists. But that doesn’t really matter all that much, because the story merely serves as a way to tie together the various dungeons and quests in your hunt for gear. Quality voice acting and some truly incredible cut-scenes between Acts help flesh out the universe, but past the first playthrough it’s not really anything worth paying attention to.

Even when the story failed to grab me, the loot system kept me hooked. Bringing your axe down for a killing blow or blasting an enemy with a skill that rips the flesh from their bones is empowering, but the eruption of gold and treasure that spews into the air induces a rush of jubilation. Picking through the gore that was my enemies so I can pluck out the gold and choice items is like panning for precious metals. No matter how many times it happens I still click on the treasure as fast as I can, quickly opening up my inventory to see if I’ve hit the mother lode or a dud. Some items have their stats revealed the second you mouse over them, but when a yellow item drops and you have to wait to identify it there’s a moment where you feel like you’re waiting for lottery numbers to be announced. It results in instances of elation and frustration, but with the bad times come the moments where I’m enveloped in a sense of joy, where the hours I’ve spent wading through monsters for the umpteenth time feel more than worth it. No other game besides Diablo III has engaged my hunger – my need – to get loot in the same way. I dream about it at night (seriously), and dwell upon it while I write this sentence.

Want to learn more about Diablo III’s classes, quests and more? Check out our growing wiki.

Even when the randomly generated magic items have stats you don’t need they have a lot of value, even more so than before due to Diablo III’s revamped economy. Non-magic items are all but worthless, so when it comes to unwanted magic items you have to choose between selling them to a vendor for much-needed gold, auctioning them or breaking them down into parts for crafting at the blacksmith. Gold is dropped in random amounts from monsters, but, unlike previous Diablo titles, it’s used in more meaningful ways, and far more scarce. Not only can you use it to purchase items from other players, but it’s also used to level up your blacksmith and jeweler, purchase additional space in your stash, and repair your equipment. In fact, gold feels so useful that even when I run through a dungeon and get no usable items, I still feel like it was time well spent since I earned gold.

If wealth isn’t an issue, it’s best to take your unneeded items to the blacksmith. The blacksmith breaks down magic items into component parts, which in turn can be used (along with gold) to craft new weapons and armor. It creates agonizing moments where you could sell an item for short term gain in gold, or take a chance and break it into parts to create something new. If you pay the gold and work towards upgrading your smith, crafted items become really useful. While not quite as exciting as finding loot off a monster, each crafted item’s randomized stats ensure little moments of elation. The jeweler rounds out the crafting system, but the gems he fashions have predictable stats, taking away all the mystery of what you’ll get. Still, the jeweler provides the same meta-benefit as the smith, giving you another venue to feel like you’re making progress since their leveled-up status carries over into other characters and difficulty settings.

If you’re not selling it to a merchant or using it for smithing, your magic items should go to the auction house. Here you can enter a virtual market powered by the community (though currently only for gold transactions, because the real money auction house has yet to be implemented despite appearing as a bullet point on the back of the box), selling items either straight from your stash or directly off of one of your characters. People flush with cash can also use it to pick up items for their hero instead of hunting for them, quickly searching for specific armor slots or weapon types with a series of drop down menus. It’s nice to have a system integrated directly into the game, though it’d be better if you could access it from within the game world, rather than the main menu. What’s genuinely awful, though, is that Blizzard has set a seemingly arbitrary 10 item auction limit, leaving me in a situation where I’m perpetually waiting for something to sell so I can move the next item out of my stash. It’s incredibly annoying.

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the pursuit of treasure, talking about the benefits of my next imaginary drop and how awesome my character will look that I lose sight of how fun it is to acquire it to begin with. Diablo III’s combat holds up over the lengthy campaign because of its randomly generated dungeons and monsters. One second you’re exploring a narrow cave passage densely packed with tiny demons, the next you’re deftly dodging and luring gigantic titans into vast open deserts. Play the same section of the game again and you might face the giant enemies in the tight space, while the swarms of enemies come at you from all over the desert. Or maybe another time you’ll face something altogether unexpected, such as a special enemy with abilities you haven’t seen before. Each time you play certain areas tied to the story might be laid out in the same way, but levels — and the enemies that populate them — are largely unpredictable. Never knowing what to expect keeps you on your toes, with your doom potentially hiding behind every breakable door. It just adds to the sense of adventure, and makes you feel like an empowered and emboldened hero if you manage to take down all your foes.

But your hero would hardly be heroic without his wide array of abilities, which are doled out at just the right increments, and not connected to any permanent choices. Every time your character gains an additional level in his journey to the cap of 60 he either obtains a new power, a rune that augments an already unlocked power, or a passive ability. Every time you level it feels significant, and, because there’s no penalty for switching out one power or rune for another, experimentation happens naturally in order to adapt. If I’m fighting waves of weaker enemies I’ll use an ability set that does damage over wide areas, while moments where I’m facing a boss or an another large enemy encourages me to quickly swap these for skills suited to taking on a single target.

Runes are an especially great way to handle skill augmentation, too, because skills you get early on that may seem useless can suddenly become amazing later in the game. For instance my witch doctor has a skill that summons frogs, but with runes I can summon one great frog that consumes an enemy whole, or make it rain frogs from the sky and poison enemies over time. With five runes per skill, my witch doctor feels super versatile, able to adapt to take on most anything Diablo III sends his way. One second he’s a life-leeching summoner with a legion of undead followers to tank for him, the next he’s a high-damage dealing caster with great support skills to help my teammates. With so many skills and versions of them it could get intimidating, but runes are introduced very slowly, and over multiple playthroughs. It’s a really smart way to handle an otherwise intense learning curve, and to make combat so engrossing that its repetitiveness goes largely unnoticed.

Haven’t kept up with our review in progress? See all of our previous entries and learn more about our journey to get here.

As big of a fan of approachability as I am, a little more explanation of some of Diablo III’s deeper features would be appreciated. Namely, it should very clearly and deliberately point out the inclusion of Advanced Tooltips and Elective Mode. The former details how your skills work in more detail (such as how your weapon’s damage might affect a skill, for instance), while the latter allows you to completely customize which skills go on which of your six buttons. If you don’t enable Elective Mode you’re locked into a few skill options per key, which is great for people who are learning the ropes, but something anyone will want to change after a few hours. The days where big-budget titles could be made for “l33t” gamers are over, and while I applaud Blizzard’s efforts to make Diablo III a game most anyone can play regardless of previous experience with the franchise, they do need to let more advanced players in on these features without having to hunt for them.

For the experienced player, one time through the campaign of Diablo III just isn’t enough. With randomly-generated areas and monsters, as well as a range of difficulties to play on, there are always more battles and loot waiting. While the first time you battle your way through Act I you might find one chest, and fight a pack of champion monsters just before it, the next time you might find three gargantuan demons – you just never know until you try. The entrancing allure of the unknown — that you might stumble upon something unexpected – fills me every time I start a game. Add to that additional difficulty levels, where monsters gain powers you’ve never seen, and in combinations that make them genuinely threatening to your hero who moments before seemed superpowered, and it becomes an experience where excitement is around every corner, and adventure (or death) is just waiting for you to find it. At IGN we praise many games for their replayability, but Diablo III, with its continuous class progression across multiple difficulties, as well as its randomly generated dungeons loot and monsters, really stands in a class of its own.

Even on harder difficulty levels you can play the entire campaign alone, but Diablo III makes it easy to play around with friends or total strangers. Because it’s always online, you can quickly bring up your Battle.net friends list, joining another’s game or inviting up to three others. It’s simple, intuitive and very, very fast. Then once you’re together you can teleport to one another from town, slaying monsters who become tougher with each player that joins the game. Multiplayer isn’t always conducive to getting the most out of the narrative (players who skip the story skip it for everyone, and you can’t bring AI controlled companions in multiplayer), but can result in epic moments where everyone excitedly links the loot they just got, brokering deals or just giving it freely in order to make the party stronger. Killing a boss alone is gratifying, but doing it with others results in tall tales and all kinds of unpredictable hilarity. The good times don’t become hampered by people stealing loot from one another, either, as Blizzard has wisely made it so the only loot you see is your own. If you want to share items you can drop it from your inventory or trade it. There’s no fighting about who gets what; instead everyone just focuses on enjoying the battles and reaping their rewards. An integrated voice client would have made things even more convenient, but regardless it’s still great always feeling connected to your circle of friends, sharing links to your loot whether or not you’re in the same game, or just killing time chatting.

Twelve years. Twelve long years of waiting and fans are finally playing Diablo III, and, if my recent marathon sessions are any indication, they will be for the foreseeable future. So many systems from previous Diablo titles have been improved, making for an approachable, rewarding and deeply satisfying treasure hunting game. It’s addictive on a level few games can match, so much so that it’s easy to largely overlook its flaws. Sure, if you want you could really nitpick Diablo III’s design, but ultimately any minor grievances seem so trivial when compared to the enjoyment I had and will continue to have with Diablo III for years to come.

Diablo III Review

amazing

An approachable, rewarding and deeply satisfying treasure hunting game.

Anthony Gallegos

‘Diablo 3’ Review: The World’s Most Dangerous Video Game Is Now on Switch

Diablo 3 might be the least pretentious video game ever made. There isn’t an ounce of bullshit to it. It doesn’t posture about how meaningful your actions are, how epic its story is, or how rich its many worlds are. Its story campaign, in which you embark on a journey to seal away the lords of hell, is merely an introduction to a list of things that the game expects you to repeat, with even less context, essentially forever: killing hordes of monsters, picking up loot, and figuring out which of set of pants will help you blow up corpses faster. Diablo 3 is so free of bullshit that you might bounce right off of it, accustomed to the theatrics of modern video games as you are. This is dumb, I thought, when I first played Diablo 3—it first came out in 2012. What am I even doing? The answer was: nothing. I was doing nothing. I was doing everything. And now that Diablo 3 is out on Nintendo Switch, there is nothing to stop me from doing it all the time.

This is the problem that arises when talking about Diablo 3: It’s impossibly hard to do without sounding either like you have a serious problem or have taken up the most boring habit in the world. Those are the two extremes, and not only are they both true, but they can both be true at the same time. But there’s also a sensible middle ground, a decent reason for playing Diablo 3—it’s the most chill, low-stakes game in the world, a great way to de-stress solo or with some pals, to do nothing of consequence while also feeling like you’re making progress. When I’m a bit overwhelmed but can’t justify stepping away from things for more than ten minutes, I can play Diablo 3. It’s the video game version of what I imagine taking up smoking to be like.

Here’s how it works: You pick a character from one of seven classes that each have a loose style of play—most classes do what you’d think. Barbarians dive into the thick of things, Wizards wreck shit from afar, and Witch Doctors conquer hordes with mild racism. As you play, your character gains experience and learns new skills, which come in various permutations for you to mix and match in fun ways. I’m a Necromancer, so I’ve got this skill where I can blow up corpses with the touch of a button, and a flesh golem that will leap into a crowd and explode into a pile of corpses. So a fun combo is to send this pile of corpses into a horde of monsters with one button, and then blow them all up with another, which will leave more corpses on the ground that I can then blow up again, ad infinitum, until there are no more monsters to slay. (Diablo 3 is a game designed by people who stare at heavy metal album covers all day and tried to fit them all in one video game. )

So that’s one half of the game. The other half is all the loot you’ll get from killing those monsters. You’ll get swords, capes, shoes, pants, and other assorted sundries to cop for your latest fit, and just like in real life, they convey status. (The grey stuff is worthless, the orange stuff is like, the Supreme of medieval helms.) They all have numbers attached, and no matter how refined your tastes are you are still ruled by a pathetic and easily manipulatable lizard brain, so you will enjoy seeing those numbers going up. And they always go up.

«So this is the game?» my friend and frequent GQ contributor Scott Meslow asked, about six times, when I introduced him to Diablo last night. And yeah, that’s the game. Simply put, you are making a machine that churns up monsters and spits out numbers, and it’s your goal to make those numbers go higher, faster, while looking flyer. It’s honestly soothing, how little Diablo cares about justifying its existence. If you pick up the Eternal Collection on Switch, you can even bypass the game’s story entirely and jump right into Adventure Mode, which just gives you an endless list of challenges to take on, and rewards you with piles of new stuff for doing it.

Diablo 3 is the purest game you can buy. Sure, you could play better games—you could play anything else, really—but you’ll never play anything more honest. The Lord of Terror waits for us all.

Diablo III: Overview | Stop Game

Let’s go right off the bat, without any introductory parts, where I have to talk a little about the phenomenon of Diablo and bring the reader to the fact that the third part of the most famous hack’n’slash RPG in the world has finally come out. Yes, in my opinion, this is how the genre of the game should be called, because calling it a thoroughbred RPG is at least strange. Judge for yourself: what kind of role-playing is here? Extremely conditional, because it depends on the choice of the hero only how we will deal with the numerous hordes of evil spirits. There are no moral choices, no banal answer options in the dialogues, and there are not so many dialogues themselves. But no matter what the “genre” column says, the game is out, passed, the opinion has been drawn up, and it’s time to express it.

Where does the Devil begin?

If you exclude the registration screens in the Battle.net system and other installation and loading windows, it turns out that everything starts with the choice of a hero. There are five classes again: barbarian, demon hunter, sorcerer, monk and sorcerer. I will not describe the features in too much detail — after all, this is a review, and not a guide to the correct “pumping” (oh, we will return to this). I’ll just note that the characters turned out to be of various colors, and each has its own feature. Moreover, the first three are the former barbarian, Amazon and sorceress, respectively. The sorcerer is a kind of cross between a druid and a necromancer. But the monk is a new and unfamiliar class, unusually powerful in hand-to-hand combat.

Acrobatic sketch «Barbarian over the abyss».

Each hero has his own story. That is, there is still a global storyline dedicated to the next invasion of the forces of evil on our world, a star that fell from the sky and old acquaintances like Descartes Cain and the archangel Tyrael, but in parallel with this, everything that happens is commented on by small videos voiced by the voice of the selected character, explaining who and where he came from. The plot itself, although it remains somewhere in the background, will nevertheless please connoisseurs of the series. A variety of diaries scattered across the local expanses complete the picture of what is happening. Blizzard was very wise to voice them and not force the players to be distracted by this reading.

And now partners have their own stories. Now there are only three of them, but for each a whole lot of dialogues are recorded for all occasions, and they will comment on almost every step, while managing not to bother.

It all starts, as usual, in Tristram, where a star slammed onto the church. Yes, not easy, but blue. And the dead began to wake up and attack the living. The first locations evoke nostalgic feelings — painfully familiar landscapes, cemeteries, cellars, caves, native zombies and skeletons. However, gradually nostalgia leaves and bewilderment comes. At the beginning of the second act, experienced players are visited by deja vu. By the end of the second act, there is already a firm conviction that further we will find ourselves in the swamps of Kurast. But instead, we are waiting for the snowy expanses of Arreat, also already familiar. And its bowels, suspiciously reminiscent of the fourth act of Diablo 2. Only the last, fourth act turns out to be unusual and original, so I will tactfully keep silent about it.

But here it is worth making a reservation — only those who are familiar with the previous parts will notice the self-copying. And it will annoy them only if the game has been completed five to ten times. Otherwise, it is almost impossible to find fault with level design. The surrounding spaces are rendered simply amazing. The designers of Blizzard managed to squeeze the absolute maximum out of the game engine, filling each location with an incredible amount of different details that help to further convey the atmosphere of the place where we are. Whether it is hot sands in the desert, where the wind constantly blows; the hazy cemeteries around Tristram; snow-capped peaks of Arreata; or its fiery depths, where even the air trembles with unbearable heat. The picture sometimes looks just bewitchingly beautiful.

A monk demonstrates the Shadow Handshake move to the spiders. Spiders are in awe.

And all sorts of monsters are scattered over these not very original, but excellently rendered locations, on which the seal of secondary is much more difficult to discern. The secret here is in the balance — among the moon lambs, zombies and rebellious skeletons familiar to any «oldfag», there is constantly a new, hitherto unseen evil spirits. In general, the bestiary turned out to be decent, varied and outstanding.

Diablo 3 in terms of gloom is very much inferior to its predecessors, it should be noted. The picture here is more like a revived fantasy comic book. No torn bodies and blood-drenched floors in dungeons, terrible screams of the dying and other things. Everything is cruel, but in moderation.

The Devil Wears…

However, no matter how beautiful the scenery and diverse opponents, the essence of Diablo lies in the process of exploring locations and destroying hordes of spiteful critics. I already wrote above how the locations look, so now I’ll say a few words about how they are arranged. Since the previous parts, the main principle of building levels has not changed — everything around is procedurally generated and unique for each individual hero. The developers promised an even greater degree of diversity that the generator could generate, and to some extent they did not lie. But only in some.

A variety of random events now regularly appear on the map in the manner of “random encounters” from the first parts of Fallout : either the farmer’s crop in the garden will grow too infernal (hello, Khakunin!), then someone in the basement will begin to hunt with black magic, then they will ask someone just to protect. And there are a lot of such mini-quests.

Is it me or do I really see Pyramid Head from Silent Hill and Brumak from Gears of War?

But the locations have noticeably diminished in open spaces. This is a very controversial innovation. On the one hand, yes, now you don’t sometimes have to spend a whole evening trying to find a tree with a scroll of Inifus, and on the other hand, some locations have become too intestinal. It is simply impossible to move either to the right or to the left, even with a strong desire. But open spaces also happen, as well as vast dungeons, where it is easier to get lost without a map than to accidentally pick up some unnecessary rubbish in battle.

Whoever came to the Devil with a sword left him with a «loot»

So we got to the most entertaining and exciting — the management of your hero and everything connected with it. Let’s start, since I mentioned useless rubbish, with «loot», inventory and gems. In general, everything was left in the same places — we beat the beast, kilograms of gold, gray, white, blue and other colorful little things fall out of his pockets, which we collect, inspect and sell or use, depending on the characteristics. Only one thing has changed globally — inventory management has completely disappeared, when the player manually had to sort items in order to free up the maximum amount of space (which is now almost twice as large). The weapon itself, armor and other useful and not very items occupy no more than two cells. As a result, you need to monitor the inventory only at the moments when the character says: «I’m overloaded.»

Visual demonstration of the new anti-piracy system.

And at the same time, it is highly likely that when you open your shoulder bag, you will find that very pile of unnecessary trash there. Rubbish turns out to be unnecessary for two reasons: firstly, the prices for white and gray items have been sharply reduced. For them now give mere pennies. Therefore, everything that does not have magical properties does not make sense to collect from the very beginning. Secondly, things themselves sometimes climb into the inventory. That is, when you click on everything around in the heat of battle, you often hit not on the enemy, but on some contraption, which is instantly sent to your inventory. Although formally no one called her there.

But everything related to «crafting» has expanded significantly. For once, you can wisely invest money, and not keep half of the game in a chest, so that later you can use it on a cool staff, and pick up almost the same, only better, from the corpse of a monster killed by a new thing. We no longer have a Horadric cube, but there are various craftsmen: a blacksmith and a jeweler. With their help, you can forge weapons yourself, assemble larger ones from small stones, pull out already inserted stones from things, and so on. The larger the stone or the more powerful the weapon, the higher the skill level of the respective craftsman. How is the level going up? That’s right — for a generous shipment of gold coins. As a result, it is quite realistic to literally become the blacksmith of your own happiness and not depend on the goods sold, or on what falls out of the killed enemies.

The Other Side of the Devil

The Scrolls have been finally and irrevocably abolished. Items are now identified with simple sorcery, and portals to the city are endless. Again, a controversial decision. Undoubtedly, this is a step towards convenience. Who was not annoyed by the weighty volumes, which, moreover, regularly had to be filled with parchment? However, you had to keep an eye on them, and this was one of the aspects of the gameplay along with the fuss in the inventory.

Big, muscular, in armor, with axes and in the company of two charming witches.

And at the same time, a much more important component of the gameplay — «pumping» fell off. The hero now automatically receives increases to the main characteristics and various abilities along with gaining a level, regardless of the player’s desire. Developing skills is also no longer required. At certain levels, various abilities unlock runes that enhance them. You can only link one rune to a skill, but the link is breakable, so you can pick them up if you want, depending on the situation. Raid on the «boss»? We take a vampire rune to suck life out of the enemy with each blow. The raid of numerous small fry? We take a rune that allows us to hit the area with a simple blow in order to take the life of as many creatures as possible with one swing.

Again, this is a double-edged sword. Yes, now you don’t have to worry about “pumping”, but personally, for example, I don’t mind messing with it at all. And it is important not so much that it was some kind of super-complex (and it was by no means such), but that I was deprived of the opportunity to have some options. My level 35 barbarian will differ from any other level 35 barbarian only in equipment. Therefore, when PvP arenas and an auction that works for real money are launched, the question of the winner will be decided very simply: whoever invested the most wins.

I personally find the new system of drinking medicine bottles to be a very strange decision. I understood the logic of Diablo 2 — there, drinking a potion of health or mana restored the corresponding characteristic not instantly, but with a delay. However, no one interfered with the need to drink three elixirs in a row. In Diablo 3, bottles instantly restore the indicated number of lives, but immediately after use, they cannot be drunk for thirty seconds. Not that it is a very critical moment, but some battles eventually turn into natural races with death.

Such a running around, by the way, occasionally ends due to the appearance of a window with the inscription «Disconnected from server …». Who in Blizzard came up with the brilliant idea to arrange protection based on a constant and stable Internet connection is almost a rhetorical question. But this person should have already died several times from hiccups, judging by the frenzied indignation of the fans, who, due to the notorious «Error 37», could not corny enter the game to play alone.

The turtle in the background is clearly unhappy with something.

And finally, a few words about complexity. Not everything went smoothly with her, unfortunately. The game seems too easy at first. Reaching the first major «boss» and not using a single health potion is quite realistic. And then how lucky and depending on what kind of hero you have. However, in any case, the normal difficulty is not something supernatural and is actually more like a warm-up. The trouble starts at Nightmare. Moreover, this transition does not occur smoothly, as it was (again) in the previous part, but abruptly. Here you just flunked Diablo like a cow in a slaughterhouse, but the first zombie you meet makes a chop out of you in two strokes. And you are reborn at the last «checkpoint», with all your things and money.

However, whatever I said above, Diablo 3 is a great time killer and spinal warm-up. The game is ideal, for example, for listening to a podcast in the background or relaxed conversations with a friend on Skype. It has great design, enchanting music, excellent animation and constant spurring of the inner munchkin. But at the same time, there are a lot of strange and dubious innovations, a sense of secondary and a “pumping” system at zero, and you can’t turn a blind eye to such things. And I’d love to rate the game «amazing» if it deserves it.

Pros: addictive gameplay; location design; music; great CG videos; powerful map generator.
Cons: the need for a permanent Internet connection; secondary scenery; a number of controversial in-game decisions.

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4.1

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What is Diablo III? — Game

What
Diablo III Looks Like
Barbarian Overview
Sorcerer Overview
Crusader Overview
Monk Overview
Necromancer Overview
Demon Hunter Overview
Enchantress Overview

Watch the video

We’re happy with how the original Diablo game turned out: dark, atmospheric, and tense. In Diablo II, we further diversified the game environment and bestiary and added a number of unique features that then became an integral part of the game (gems, runes, item sets, etc.).

Both games feature elements that have become a hallmark of Diablo: re-generated levels; constant updating of the game environment due to the incessant attacks of monsters and other events; unique tasks; many different items; and, of course, a detailed plot about the eternal battle between the forces of Heaven and the Underworld and the fate of people who are unwittingly or consciously involved in this confrontation.

Diablo III continues this tradition. But we’ve added even more new elements to the game to complete and enrich the image of Sanctuary.

In Diablo III, you can optimize skills using runes. They give you unprecedented control over skills and abilities: you can change the type of damage dealt, accuracy and range. In addition, runes can be used to boost attacks with new effects that weaken enemies, such as stuns and slows. You can even change the very nature of your abilities and their visual appearance.

Skill runes for each class:

Even the greatest heroes sometimes need help. Companions are brave helpers who will accompany you in the battle against the forces of evil. Like the mercenaries in Diablo II, they use the equipment and weapons that suit them. But, unlike mercenaries, companions also have their own skills and talents: they can be upgraded and the passive bonuses they provide can be chosen, thus determining their fighting style. In addition, companions are no longer soulless killer robots: each has its own history and character.

Details of each satellite:

Talented artisans will be among the new acquaintances waiting for you in Sanctuary; they will want to accompany you on your journey. These skilled artisans can put to good use the various items you find on your travels, as well as the components you get from dismantling odds and ends. They will be able to craft a custom set of armor for you or combine various gems to unlock the possibilities contained in them.

Spare no time and money to train a craftsman, supply him with high-quality materials. Then the items that he will make for you will be better.

Details of each of the artisans:

In order to speed up the pace of the game, we have made some changes to the character and item control system in Diablo III. Now you will have more time to destroy enemies and get loot. You don’t need to accumulate skill points and refuse to improve abilities until you get the right level in order to perfectly distribute points. In Diablo III, you can redistribute points at any time and experiment freely with different options. And items can be placed in the general inventory and transferred from one character to another. To identify unknown objects and teleport to the city and back, you will no longer need scrolls and tomes.

Combat in Diablo III follows the old tried and tested pattern: attack the enemy, use abilities, enemies die. However, fights will become more intense, thoughtful, less monotonous. Each class has a lot of defensive abilities in its arsenal — this allows you to significantly diversify the tactics of combat. Potions will now have a cooldown, so you’ll need to be more selective in your targeting and control in combat, and health orbs will encourage players to move more actively on the battlefield.

In addition to the classic Diablo II keyboard shortcuts, Diablo III will introduce new control options. This will allow you to select the right ability much faster in any duel.

There are six classes in Diablo III. Five of them: sorcerer, sorcerer, demon hunter, monk and crusader are new. In the arsenal of the barbarian, well known to players from Diablo II, there are many new effective ways to tear enemies to pieces. Each class now uses its own resource system and has a uniquely recognizable play style (not all heroes are mana based anymore).

Details of each class:

Skill calculator

Diablo III has even more new and varied monsters than Diablo I and II. They have a variety of abilities, both new and already familiar to players. Random items in Diablo III are a lot like items from previous games (although they now include Legendary items), but we’ve added a ton of new combinations, many with unique abilities and completely new properties.

New types of weapons and equipment, such as the one-handed demon hunter’s crossbow or the sorcerer’s mojo, emphasize the uniqueness of the gameplay for a particular class.

Hidden Objects

In previous Diablo games, in order to fight other players, advance training was required. In Diablo III, for those who want to measure their strength against each other, we decided to create a special gaming environment — a more formalized one. In the Ruins of the Burnt Chapel, we took the classic duels from Diablo as a basis, but now you can participate in them only by mutual agreement. This zone is specially designed for fierce and intense battles in which anyone can take part.

The more challenging levels in Diablo III provide new opportunities for character development compared to normal mode. Overcoming obstacles and progressing from level to level, you can get more powerful and intimidating armor sets, powerful unique items, high-level runes and upgrades for artisans. At the next difficulty levels, the monsters become more and more dangerous.

You choose the difficulty level yourself. The harder it is, the richer the loot!

Now you can earn achievements and display them on your personal battle standard — it shows at a glance what you have already achieved.

On 6 января, 2023 By alexxlab

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