Diablo® IV: Lord of Hatred™ Review Summary

A strong Diablo IV finale with praised Warlock and Paladin classes and improvements over the last DLC, but its boring story, aggressive monetization, and overpriced poor value hold it back.

Expansion story concludes Diablo IV well: The expansion's narrative is widely regarded as a worthy and satisfying conclusion to Diablo IV's main storyline. Reviewers describe it as the best story in the game so far, providing a true final chapter.

Warlock and Paladin classes praised: Players consistently highlight the new Warlock and Paladin classes as fun, powerful, and well-designed additions. The Warlock's demonic powers and the Paladin's tanking ability are specifically called out as enjoyable.

Expansion improves on previous DLC: The expansion is seen as a major step up from the first DLC and the base game, with better pacing, more polish, and quality-of-life improvements. It offers a longer and more enjoyable experience overall.

Soundtrack and music are outstanding: The game's soundtrack and music receive high praise for being epic, atmospheric, and award-worthy. Reviewers consistently describe the audio as fantastic and fitting for every act.

Gameplay and campaign are fun: Players find the core gameplay enjoyable and the campaign strong and worth playing. The game feels good to play, with a brisk and interesting pace.

Story boring and poorly written: The campaign story is described as tedious, monotonous, and weak, with dragged-out pacing and poor writing. The ending is considered only okay, and the narrative feels all over the place.

Aggressive monetization criticized: The monetization is described as egregious and pay-to-win, with too many microtransactions. Reviewers criticize the company for squeezing money out of players and the pricing policy as exploitative and disgusting.

DLC overpriced and poor value: Reviewers repeatedly call the DLC overpriced for its quality, noting it costs nearly as much as the base game. Many feel the expansion is barely worth its price and offers poor value.

No loyalty discount for DLC owners: Players who already purchased previous expansions receive no discount on bundled or new DLC. This applies to owners of DLC1, Vessel of Hatred, and earlier expansions, leaving loyal customers feeling penalized.

Warlock class poorly designed: Players widely criticize the new Warlock class as clunky, weak, and sluggish, dealing low damage. The design feels awkward and unappealing compared to existing classes.

New Paladin and Warlock classes: The expansion introduces two new playable classes: the Paladin and the Warlock. These classes are frequently mentioned as a major addition across multiple feedback clusters.

Expanded endgame content: The game includes extensive new endgame content with new mechanics, activities, and rewards. The endgame has been completely reworked and reorganized for depth and breadth.

Skill tree overhaul: The skill tree has been significantly reworked with branching paths, expanded active skills, and more meaningful character customization. Players note the removal of passives and improved build variety.

New story campaign: The expansion features a new campaign that continues the story from the base game and previous expansion, providing a logical conclusion to the arc. It includes new locations and bosses.

War Plans endgame system: War Plans are a new endgame feature that lets players choose activities and apply difficulty and reward modifiers through a progression tree. It organizes endgame activities and provides direction.

Server instability and disconnections: Players suffer from frequent disconnections, login failures, long queues, and poor server stability. Network latency and rubber-banding make the game unplayable for some, even with a network accelerator.

Frequent crashes and freezes: The game crashes constantly, sometimes returning to desktop, and can freeze or become unresponsive. Some players experience crashes during story mode boss fights, and lowering graphics settings does not prevent them.

Poor performance and lag on strong PCs: Even high-end systems experience lag, frame drops, and stuttering, including on an RTX 5070 Ti with DLSS. Players report high CPU/GPU usage and slowdowns, though some note good performance in specific configurations.

Bugs and script errors: The game is plagued by numerous bugs, including disappearing summons, non-displaying quest objects, script malfunctions, and configuration options vanishing after patches. Some players encounter error messages and black screens.

Severe memory leaks and RAM exhaustion: Players report massive memory leaks that consume all available RAM and pagefile, causing out-of-memory errors and crashes regardless of graphics settings. Multiple users note that memory usage can exceed 40GB, making the game unplayable after a few hours.

Essential for Diablo fans: Many reviewers consider the expansion a must-play for anyone who enjoys the Diablo franchise or ARPGs, citing the story and overall experience. It is frequently described as a no-brainer purchase for existing fans.

Buy on discount: A large number of reviewers recommend waiting for a sale due to the high price, stating it is only worth buying at a discount. Full price is often seen as too steep for the amount of content offered.

Compelling story and campaign: The narrative and campaign are frequently praised as the main reason to purchase, with some saying the story alone justifies the price. However, a few reviewers criticize the story as weak.

Not recommended by some: A minority of reviewers do not recommend the expansion, citing poor management, unplayable state, or overall dissatisfaction. Some suggest buying other games instead.

Positive user experience: Many reviewers share highly positive personal experiences, calling the expansion amazing, addictive, or the best they've had. They strongly recommend it to others.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $40.00.

Story completion: 10.0h.

Session length: 5.0h.

Endgame: 15.0h.

Reviewers often describe early systems, campaign pacing, and the Torment climb as friction, with enjoyment arriving after they adapt and reach the late game or unlock build-defining gear.

Friction: Overwhelming affixes and systems; Tedious middle campaign; Weak starter gear and a slog into Torment; War Plans feel like an optimization layer to solve before fun; Bugs that soft-lock story progression and poor checkpoints; Character-specific War Plan progression punishes alt play.

Unlock drivers: Adapting to the game's systems; Reaching the late game without constantly dying; Reaching Torment and unlocking build-defining gear; Reaching the campaign climax; Reworked skill tree and meaningful progression.

Betrayed Veteran Progression Player: Endgame progression, Abyss pushing, rune-set and build optimization, and staying current with each expansion. Motivation: Maintain endgame relevance and get fair value from years of Diablo IV investment. Stance: no buy.

Story-First Campaign Player: Single-player campaign and atmospheric exploration, often with little interest in seasonal or endgame grinding. Motivation: Experience the campaign, characters, and cinematic storytelling. Stance: buy.

Casual Busy-Adult ARPG Player: Short sessions, lower Torment tiers, story and seasonal fun without hardcore grinding. Motivation: Relaxed, accessible progression that fits limited playtime. Stance: buy.

Most Windows cohorts are positive despite caveats about stuttering, frame drops, and occasional crashes; the single sampled Windows 16GB+ VRAM report is negative due to audio desync above 30 FPS, while Linux/Proton 16GB+ VRAM is positive.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: positive. Most included reports recommend the game, though stuttering, frame drops, and occasional memory-leak crashes remain recurring caveats.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. Both included reports recommend the game; one mentions a few disconnects and one crash with lost progress, but overall play is described as fun.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Most included reports are positive, citing smooth 1080p performance and no bugs in long sessions, with only isolated story-mission crashes mentioned.

Steam Deck: Steam Deck feedback is mixed. Some users report smooth performance and strong controls, but frequent black screens, driver crashes, lost progress, manual launch-option fixes, default FSR problems, text-to-speech friction, and unreliable online requirements create substantial friction. Stability failures are the dominant blocker.

Linux and Proton: The available Linux/Proton evidence is sparse but mostly favorable: one user reports smoother performance on Linux than Windows, and another resolves an issue with a single Steam launch option. There is no explicit evidence of anti-cheat, DRM, launcher, or widespread Proton launch failures. The overall picture is a game that largely works on Linux with a minor launch-option tweak.

Monetization: The reviews provide direct evidence of a real-money cash shop, multiple battle and event passes, an added currency, and expansion gating that many players describe as mandatory for character power and endgame progression. Some users accept the season pass, but the dominant pattern is aggressive monetization combining expensive cosmetics, pass pressure, and paid expansion power.

Story surpasses Vessel of Hatred: Reviewers consistently compare the expansion's story and campaign favorably to the previous expansion, Vessel of Hatred, calling it superior in narrative quality and cohesion.

Paid DLC and bundles: The expansion is sold as a paid DLC, often bundled with previous expansions or in an ultimate edition. Some bundles include the first expansion for free.

Microtransactions and cosmetic monetization: The game includes microtransactions for cosmetic items and a season pass, with skins sold at high individual prices.

High DLC pricing criticized: The expansion is priced extremely high, sometimes more than the base game on sale, with a $40 price point noted as too expensive.

Favorable comparison to Diablo II: The expansion's story and philosophy are compared favorably to Diablo II, and also to Diablo III and IV as a whole.