I didn’t expect Diablo 4 to be my next MMO
Blizzard is still calling Diablo 4 an action-RPG but there’s no denying its very shared world.
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I was not looking for a new MMO to enter my life. I’m a healthier person when I’m not obsessively dungeon grinding for legendary gear and logging in to stand about digital towns every evening. WithDiablo 4approaching and Blizzard hyping up its slightly more shared world, I thought perhaps it could be aliteMMO: A diet-style, low-fat-but-all-sugar form of my usual obsessions. Not, y’know, a complete disaster for my free time. But after playing in theDiablo 4 betait’s quite clear: Diablo is my next MMO.
I’ve never Diabloed in my life, but everything I knew about the online qualities of the series led me to expect it could fill the long-empty hole in my life left by the original Guild Wars. I’ve been craving a map to clear and that old blend of shared towns but instanced combat zones that so far only Path of Exile has ever managed to give me. But Diablo 4 is a lot closer to wholesale MMO Guild Wars 2 than yon instanced online RPG I expected.
During the first beta weekend the evidence stacked up:
The first main town, Kyovashad, was usually populated by a gaggle of players around me running back and forth from stash to blacksmith to perfect their equipment. Outside town in the open world I would come across other players adventuring in pairs or solo easily every 10 minutes. When it came time to tackle a zone event at the Kor Dragan stronghold in the north, around a dozen other players descended to roast the level 30 Blood Bishop by wracking my screen with spell effects. Dungeons are the only place you’ll be tucked away in an instance separate from other players.
Diablo 4 doesn’t ask you to choose your allegiance to a server the way most MMOs do, but once I got my boots on the ground there’s no denying how much its shared world feels like one.
I know this always-online world with native party voice chat might be the inner circle of hell for some old school Diablo fans. You’ve been warned: Diablo is definitely an MMO now. The only thing it doesn’t have is a /dance emote—at least not that I saw. There’s still time to correct that oversight, Blizzard.
The (best) worst part is that I’m having a great time. There are just enough armor variations and color combos to keep me on the fashion grind. The legendary loot pipeline has unique aspects that I’m actually enjoying trying. I’m even paying attention to the story. I never pay attention to the main story in an MMO, but it’s quite easy to grasp the basics of patheon family drama. I even soloed the first act, which is just the amount of alone-but-togetherness I was craving. Last year I complained that I’mwaiting for MMOs to get weirderand yet here I am, already taken in by this textbook execution of one. I might owe Lost Ark an apology.
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Blizzard is still calling Diablo 4 an action-RPG, but it sure seems to share more territory with WoW than I counted on. Diablo 4 definitely passes a degree of shared online-ness that any other developer would be marketing as an MMO. Perhaps Blizzard isn’t doing so only because it’s already got one. The throttle on the number of players per zone may make it feel more like a Medium Multiplayer Online RPG, but there sure will be a massive number of people playing at launch if the preorder beta is anything to judge by.
Diablo 4 launches on June 6, but theDiablo 4 open betabegins this Friday, March 24. It’s as good a time as any to be certain whether you’re ready for this brave new Sanctuary.
Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can’t stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.
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