So back in 1997 or whenever my best friend and I discovered this dungeon crawling game called Diablo. It was grim and goth as hell, and we LAN played the shit out of it. It was literally a life changing game. Then came Diablo 2 which we both played, but not as much which was hailed as a masterpiece.
A few warcraft's and a world of warcraft later Diablo 3 came out and was a massive dissapointment. They traded gritty grim dark goth realism and horror ultraviolence for the neon cartoonist World of Warcraft aesthetic and minimal story. I hated it, save for the satisfying gameplay and top tier sound FX.
Now, here comes Diablo IV, and it looks like a promising return to tradition. It's dark as fuck. The art style is more naturalistic than cartoonist, proportions are more realistic, the music is amazing and the mood feels absolutely perfect. And it's coming in June.
BUT
Activision is still the publisher and I am afraid of their greedy corporate interests fucking up the release of this game. This game, if blizzard gets it right has the potential to restore A LOT of goodwill with their player base everywhere if they nail it. Everything I have seen looks very promising and I cant help but get excited. I'd be so happy to play this every night after putting my son to bed for a few hours, slaying demons and scaring the crap out of myself like it's 1997 again. I really really really want this to be a smash hit. God knows the fans of old school Blizzard could use a hit game without abusive paywalls and microtransactions. They are still going to be present, but the developers promise they'll be cosmetic items only, nothing power related.
Anyway, I don't want to work myself up but I already have. I'm amped and I want this to be awesome. But I'm nervous too. Cause the potential here could be another benchmark in ARPGs.