Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
Blizzard was in a unique position in regards to Diablo III’s first expansion. The company has enjoyed a nearly unparalleled level of constant success stretching back the past 15 years or so. An expansion for Blizzard is normally about creating additional content to appease all the ravenous fans who hunger for more. However, while not a terrible game, there is a general consensus that Diablo III was a letdown. So now, for the first time probably ever, Blizzard needed to make an expansion to fix what was wrong with the original game.
As noted in our original review of Diablo III and other articles, Diablo III was burdened with three major issues: the auction house, the painful loot mechanics, and the sub-par plot. If Reaper of Souls is to improve the game, those are the areas that deserve the most attention.
It seems fairly easy to point a lot of the blame of the first game on Jay Wilson who served as Diablo III’s Game Director. Having never worked on the original two Diablo games and leading development of the third, it became clear that he wasn’t suited for the job. Thus, the Diablo community sighed a collective breath of relief when it was noted in early 2013 that he was stepping down from the Diablo helm and moving on to other projects at Blizzard (but it of course is worrisome regarding whatever product he’s now working on).
Later on in 2013, the first positive changes were announced: the auction house was to be shut down. Major issue number 1: solved. It is incredibly refreshing to play the game without having to constantly think about the auction house. Whereas you used to constantly spend large amounts of time searching the auction house for items and trying to sell the endless amount of junk you’d get, now you can just play the game and have fun.
Around that same time, Diablo III was released on consoles and everyone began to realize the loot system was very different compared to the PC version. It seems like on consoles, Blizzard had taken the mindset that players will likely play with some friends and would trade with them, but that any player’s sphere of influence was relatively small. Thus, players who played on consoles actually got decent loot. Imagine that, you play through the game and are rewarded with good items – sounds kind of like the old Diablo games.
Well, Reaper of Souls brings this loot 2.0 system to the PC version as well. Major issue number 2: solved. The change was readily apparent. A great portion of high end items you get, have attributes that coincide with what your class would want. There is also a greater emphasis on unique items, such as sets and legendary items which is great because looting a unique item is just inherently more gratifying than looting a randomly generated item even if the stats were exactly the same between the two.
So far, so good. Now on to the third major problematic item and the one that would be most difficult to change. The auction house could be shut down, loot mechanics can be re-worked, but the game’s plot, characters, and overall tone are much more difficult to change.
Most of that can’t be changed at all. Diablo III is released and there. Nothing can be done to go back and add depth to that story or make the world more dark and gritty. So right off the bat, the fix for this is going to be fairly limited. Thankfully, a valiant attempt was made at this point as well.
In Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, you are put up against Malthael who once was the Angel of Wisdom and a member of the Angiris Council but now exists as the Angel of Death. That is quite the transformation but the explanation and backstory do a good job explaining how this could have happened. Towards the end of Diablo III you are briefly told that Malthael left to search out further wisdom and that no one knows his whereabouts.
After the events of Diablo III where the prime evil is destroyed, Malthael strikes at Sanctuary with the goal to kill every single human. His reasoning is that humans descendants of both angels and demons and with the prime evil destroyed, humans represent a significant demonic presence through their heritage and capacity for evil. Thus killing all humans will make the universe more righteous and good – but not so good for humans.
Right away, the zones you travel through do have a significantly darker tone than most of Diablo III. The entire emphasis on mass death seems more fitting of a Diablo game. The drive towards a darker tone is appreciated, but there are limits to what could be done. If they were starting from scratch, shooting for a darker tone would involve changes to everything from models, textures, how characters talk, what people say and more but none of these are really changeable at this point. Diablo III made a turn towards being cartoony both in appearance and overall demeanor with most dialogue sounding more meant for a Saturday morning cartoon. Reaper of Souls tried to fix what it could but again, there’s only so much of this that can be fixed.
Even though there is this greater emphasis on darkness and death, the whole Malthael theme is a little disappointing. There are some significantly substantial lingering issues from Diablo III that would serve as a much more interesting expansion setting: like what about Leah? Any chance of redeeming her soul? Battling the Angel of Death seems like a much simpler, easier, and more generic offering than what could have been possible. To make matters even worse, things that could have been used in a very meaningful way in the future are discarded and killed as if Blizzard was just laying out every card it had into this expansion without any thought of where the franchise is going in the long term.
One area that did receive a significant boost is the various zones you travel through. The Pandemonium Fortress served as an especially well thought out climax to the game. Enemy encounters have also been spiced up. There were several non-boss enemy counters which seemed more significant and interesting than most boss battles in Diablo 3.
Another ingenious idea was crafting mini-levels related to the NPC companions. It was interesting to follow along the dialogue track in Diablo 3 with your companions as it added a lot to Sanctuary’s backstory and setting. Now that rote dialogue expands to where action needs to be taken and you are invited to help your companions with various tasks. Though these missions all seem to be extremely conveniently ready to embark on right in the middle of this Malthael crisis, they add tremendous depth to your companions.
When you take a step back to look at the game it is obvious that a noble attempt was made to make this more like what a Diablo game should be but at the end of the day it just seems like too little, too late. It is easy to wonder what Diablo 3 could have been if the team that made Reaper of Souls had been in charge from the beginning, but we’ll never know how that would have turned out. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls definitely improves the overall game and everyone, including all those disappointed with Diablo III would enjoy seeing where the game has been taken, but with the damage already done, it is hard to imagine this expansion lengthening the game’s long term appeal.