Skip to main content

Every online game should take note of Diablo 4’s seamless multiplayer

Diablo 4 is a dangerous game … and I mean this in the best way possible.

My level 46 Barbarian hasn’t quite reached the endgame yet, but that hasn’t stopped him from running tens of dungeon crawls with friends worldwide, many of whom I haven’t spoken to since grade school. The problem isn’t finding time to play together; it’s getting us to stop long enough to do anything productive. That’s thanks to an excellent, seamless multiplayer system that makes Diablo 4 a new gold standard for online games.

Recommended Videos

Granted, not everyone is going to have an existing circle of friends to lean on, but that’s actually what makes Diablo’s new persistent multiplayer so great. It’s shockingly easy to make new friends here (though if you choose to only roll solo, you can do that too!), since you can often walk into any given town square and immediately find a group of willing teammates, regardless of World Tier or time of day.

But since there’s so much content, and you can pretty much run through the open world and be organically exposed to a large chunk of any given zone’s activities, Diablo’s signature — and largely mindless — dungeoneering and looting remain tantamount to the whole social experience. This loop is practically bulletproof in Diablo 4, putting the exceptionally dynamic level-scaling system to good use in practice, keeping everything on the same level.

An emote wheel in Diablo 4
Activision-Blizzard

Other players can jump in and collaborate in Diablo 4’s open world as well, even if you aren’t partied up. An emote wheel also helps with communication between players who are locked to console versions and don’t have easy access to keyboard chat. In practice, this all helps you make short work of its many quests and live events regardless of level, thereby pumping your inventory full of valuable loot basically whenever you jump on, even if you’re only playing for a few minutes. If that isn’t sweet enough, get this: You get an experience point bonus of 10% for being in a party, and this expedites the leveling progression in a way that makes social play feel meaningful, no matter who you play with or what you’re doing.

It’s all a bit more striking than I initially expected. Having played through the open beta and reviewed Diablo 4 last week, I truly thought Diablo 4’s multiplayer was hammed on or would even prove a potential threat to my experience in the long run.

And yet, it only took a few really strong play sessions over the game’s opening weekend to prove me wrong. I really wanted to hate this game’s multiplayer, and now I think this might be the only MMO or ARPG for me.

Diablo 4 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Gabriel Moss
Former Contributor
As a Contributor on Digital Trends, Gabriel Moss shares his insights about video games and technology. He also contributes to…
After controversial updates, Diablo 4 devs learned to prioritize fun over balance
Neyrelle in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred.

Season 2 of Diablo 4 -- the Season of Blood -- began in mid-October and is still over two months away from ending. The limited-time Abattoir of Zir and Midwinter Blight events for Season 2 were just announced at BlizzCon 2023, where Rod Fergusson, Diablo franchise general manager, told Digital Trends about how Blizzard designs the ebb-and-flow of content during its lengthy season.

“If it’s a different season every two weeks and you’re just dialed to 11 all the time, your eyes will start to bleed,” Fergusson tells Digital Trends. “Having a little bit of a valley there before you go to the next peak can be kind of refreshing and get you energized for the next thing. We want people to play all the way through; we want people to be there for 12 weeks, and that’s why we’re having more and more content. But that’s not to say we won’t change in the future.”

Read more
Everything announced at BlizzCon 2023: Diablo 4 DLC, Cataclysm Classic, and more
A dragon flies through the sky in World of Warcraft Catclysm Classic.

 

For the first time since 2019, BlizzCon has returned to its traditional form. While Blizzard's convention held an online ceremony in 2021, it has not been hosted as an in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. That changed today with the 2023 edition, which saw fans returning to the Anaheim Convention Center to get all the news on the studio's games.

Read more
These are the Diablo 4 settings to tweak for the best performance
inarius diablo 4

Diablo has been a staple on PC for decades, so it's a big deal when a new one releases. And Diablo 4 ups the bar for the franchise in both the gameplay and visual department. In this guide, we're going to show you the best settings for Diablo 4 so you can get the most out of the game.

Thankfully, there are a ton of settings in the game to improve performance. I've tested the game for dozens of hours to arrive at the best settings, as well as looked at all of the other PC options available in the game.
Best settings for Diablo 4

Read more