Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred (PC) - Review
by
Mark Nielsen
, posted on 04 May 2026
/ 2,211 Views
An expansion to a game can be many things: a new zone with a new campaign, a collection of new features for the post game, or an entirely separate experience that can stand on its own feet. But it can also be a complete overhaul of the core game, as is more common with MMOs, and that is what Blizzard has opted for here with Lord of Hatred.
What needs to be addressed first of all with Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred is ironically both the first thing players encounter when they log-in and one that had not been nearly as prevalent in the game’s marketing as new classes and features, even though it has by far the biggest impact: the total and complete reworking of all skills and items. That’s a lot to take in, both on paper and in practice, but what it means first of all is that players will encounter a reset, only semi-familiar skill trees, and - most baffling of all – completely rerolled legendary items in their inventory when they log in to their characters (in most cases).
This means that whatever build they had is instantaneously thrown to the wind, but it also goes beyond that since even Codex Words – Legendary affixes that players could build up a sort of library of to choose from and enhance items with – are replaced by entirely new ones. Along with rebalancing numbers and changing & removing certain effects, this can all essentially be summarized as: no previous items matter. And that’s regardless of whether you were at level 60 or level 10. Then again, that statement isn’t entirely true either, because Blizzard also removed a large number of Tempering effects that players can consciously craft onto their items rather than waiting for random drops, and the way Blizzard did that was by replacing any effects that no longer exist with an absolutely massive ‘+100 to all stats’ affix, even for lower levels where you might have had barely 100 in total for your main stat before, leaving previously made low level characters with ridiculously powerful items in some cases. Frankly, the whole thing screams confusion, messiness, and a disregard for what players had been building up with their time.
Returning to the skill trees, these two great “resets” are of course linked, because having new modifiers for your skills (some of which were previously legendary effects on items) means having to rework items, but the biggest upset here is not the addition of more modifiers to skills but the removal of tons of passive abilities that could be found within the trees, including even the “ultimate” final key passive one could get before. From my perspective this was frankly not just a strange but extremely poor choice, as these passives were some of the key ways you could focus your build and some of the most satisfying nodes to choose from. Now, not only do you have fewer nodes to sink points into (upgrading the same skill up to 15 times), but the modifiers you have for each ability often feel far too specific, like something you’d find on an item instead... perhaps because that's what they actually were.
As someone who has gone through many iterations of World of Warcraft skill trees, this feels like one of those big downgrades we’ve unfortunately seen in that game before as well. What makes this one perhaps even harder to swallow is that it seems purposeless. It’s not more minimalistic, it’s not more advanced, it’s just... less fun, and it's unfortunate because of how big an effect it has on the game's flow. The skill trees were one of the major positives of Diablo IV before Lord of Hatred, but the move to this new system makes it one of the weaker elements instead. The moment-to-moment end-game gameplay might be less impacted, but leveling a character feels completely off, and when combined with the massive reset that was necessary (not just on skills, but also on items) to achieve it, it feels incredibly frustrating to look at this major overhaul of Diablo IV and feel like it’s gone very much in the wrong direction.
What makes this all the more unfortunate, even if it's not shocking, is that the negative elements mentioned so far are the ones that don’t require you to purchase the Lord of Hatred expansion, but are instead applied to all of Diablo IV - so Vessel of Hatred and base game players minding their own business are also subject to this treatment. Actually, the situation is worse still, since all players are forced into this neutered skill tree system, but parts of it – the “bonus” skill variants – are exclusive to owners of Lord of Hatred, making it an even larger downgrade for those who don't want to purchase the new expansion.
Although the massive changes to what already existed are inevitably what left the biggest impressions on me, I can’t review an expansion without covering what it adds to the table as well. Most notably, that's the addition of the Paladin and Warlock classes, one a returning classic and the other a semi-new invention (which was added to this game’s predecessor’s predecessor's remaster first). More classes and playstyles are almost always a positive, particularly for a non-competitive game, and both new additions manage to live up to the flashy and satisfying combat that Diablo IV was already packed with. Though they don’t reinvent the wheel, they fill out their roles well with cool new abilities, and both are a welcome addition. With that being said, the excitement is dragged down somewhat by the fact that I can’t help but wish we could have played these new classes with the old skill tree format, which would have offered more to explore, beyond just checking out which abilities look cool.
Then there is, of course, the new campaign itself: Lord of Hatred. It's packed with new enemies, bosses, and quests, all in a new area that builds on the story. As is somewhat unique for Diablo IV compared to its predecessors, it has a lot of side content, and this new campaign can take you anywhere from 10 to 30+ hours, depending on how deeply you dive into that or whether you just want the main story. Narratively, the return of Mephisto is cool, as are a few of the other surprises, and it’s accompanied by a number of glorious cinematics throughout (something you can still count on Blizzard to deliver consistently to this day), but if you go into it expecting the story to carry the experience then you'll likely be disappointed. It neither under- nor over-performs in this area, but as was always true with the main game, it’s the gameplay that weighs most heavily for this series, along with perhaps the atmosphere, which is still very good. Lastly, more systems and end-game content have been added - as one would expect - including Talismans, the nostalgic Horadric Cube (a fun addition, though it strays pretty far from the item's roots), and more things to potentially do in the end-game. Ultimately, though, it’s mostly a situation of having more stuff to do, but not necessarily more fun stuff to do. You can’t blame Blizzard for doing too little with the core game in Lord of Hatred, but you can question some of the things they did do.
Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred reminds me most of the Overwatch 2 situation. For previous Diablo IV players the game you know is now gone, only in this case it’s one where you could have invested dozens or hundreds of hours into building each of your different characters and have all that effort gone to waste as Blizzard hits the big reset button and throws every aspect of meaningful customization you’ve done to the wind. That would be easier to swallow if what we found on the other side of that reset was a legitimately upgraded system that felt more interesting and meaningful, but if anything it’s the opposite. It essentially only appeals to long-time players that had gotten bored with Diablo IV, because those who are still actively playing & enjoying the game, as well as players who join in the future, are unlikely to gain anything positive from this major and unnecessary overhaul.
If you go into Lord of Hatred with the express purpose of simply looking for more content to consume, then you won’t be disappointed - it certainly offers that - but the problem becomes that it’s only that; more, but not better, and you have to weigh that against the elements that it either makes worse or that it tore down and rebuilt with very little to show for it. It’s at least as big a shake-up as Reaper of Souls was for Diablo III, even more so in terms of skills, but in this case there honestly seems to have been no reason for it other than some hope that a shake-up could revitalize a game that might potentially have a lower player count than Blizzard was hoping for.
It should be said that Diablo IV as an overall package is still a good game, with satisfying combat and many cool elements, it’s just that Lord of Hatred takes more away from that than it adds. So even if the core experience is still that of a “good game”, when an expansion has only just been released and I’m left feeling not the least bit excited but am instead asking “Classic Mode, when?”, then you know that it has utterly failed.
This review is based on a digital copy of Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred for the PC, provided by the publisher.Read more about our Review Methodology here
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