Gamescom has kicked off and Diablo 4 is present and revealing new content coming with the Vessel of Hatred Expansion. This article has all the details shared about these new additions.
Gamescom Opening Night Live
Prior to the start of the main Gamescom event, we got Gamescome Opening Night Live, a shorter live event focused on Game trailers hosted by Geoff Keighley. Joining Geoff on stage for the Blizzard segments were Blizzard President Johanna Faries and Diablo 4 game Director Brent Gibson.
Mercenary Trailer
They kicked off with our first look at the Pale Hand, the groups of Mercenaries NPCS we’ll get to have as allies in the Vessel of Hatred.
There are a total of four members of the Pale Hand, each with unique abilities designed to support your character in different ways.
Aldkin, the Vengenace Mercenary
Aldkin appears to be a Demon of some nature, having the ability to take the form of both a young boy and a powerful demon. As showcased, he can perform AoE attacks of all varieties, from a fiery Slam, a fire wave, and even a Shadowy Line AoE.
This mercenary seems very offensively focused, having no shown supportive abilities.
Raheir, the Guardian Mercenary
Raheir appears to be based on Diablo 3’s Crusader class, using Skills similar to Shield Bash, Blessed Shield, Provoke, and Consecration. They also appear to be able to channel a protective dome, which seems to be an entirely new skill. This makes their kit much more defensive in nature.
Raheir’s protective dome bears the Iron Wolves Crest, so they appear to be from that faction. Though, unlike the Iron Wolves Mercenaries of old, they’re more in line with defensive powers rather than being spellcasters.
Subo, the Redemption Mercenary
Sabo sports many familiar Skills, as well as some new ones. He appears to prefer to attack at range using Penetrating Shot, Rain of Arrows, or some new Fire Grenade type skill that creates a wave of fire.
They had very little shown in terms of utility, but it seems unlikely for them to be purely offensive.
Varyana, the Rage Mercenary
Varyana uses a number of familiar but modified skills. She seems to have a mix of damage and supportive abilities, being seen using Steel Grasp, a different version Whirlwind, as well as a Leap that leaves behind an Earthquake.
She seems fairly offensive, with the only support being shown being Steel Grasp. We’ll have to see what she’s capable of later on.
Co-op Dungeon
While not much was mentioned or shown of this yet, this is stated to be a Co-op PvE Dungeon featuring Puzzles and Mechanics that require teamwork. Hopefully, more of this will be shown off during their upcoming Day 1 Gamescom appearance.
To us, this signals raid-style content, perhaps akin to many other Blizzard titles or maybe something closer to that of Lost Ark.
Gamescom Day 1
The main event brings us two different streams, the Xbox Gamescom stream and the main Gamescom stream hosted by IGN. A lot of the details from here came from the Xbox Stream. We’ve also included details from the blog released alongside the Gamescom appearance
More Mercenary Information
Mercenaries were highlighted again, this time showing off their systems for customization. They have various systems that allow them to better support your character in Diablo 4, both in gameplay and outside of game play.
Hiring Mercenaries
While playing Solo, you can hire a Mercenary to party with you and actively participate in combat. They’ll fight alongside you and provide consistent support.
To hire a Mercenary you’ll need to start the quest that begins your interaction with the Pale Hand and progress it to unlock all of the Mercenaries.
Reinforcement System
Reinforcement is a passive system that will command a Mercenary to use skills they choose as they perform different actions. This allows them to provide a follow-up attack or support you with a Skill when you perform any action or meet other conditions like being Contol Impaired.
It was shown that any mercenary skill can be tied to any of your class skills, but it was also mentioned it could be tied to other actions like Evade as well. Depending on what they offer Mercenaries seems very capable of enhancing many builds.
Mecenary Skill Trees
Beyond Reinforcement, Mercenaries can be customized right down to the skill level and fine-tuned for your needs with their own Skill Tree. While it’s significantly small then the one for our Wanderer, it offers a ton of flexibility.
It appears each Mercenary will have two different branches they can take, each with a set of three skills and some passives to support them. Unfrtunately, this means they’ll get locked out of the other branch, but just like the Wanderer it’s possible to repsec them.
Mercenary Rapport
By using Mercenaries either through the Reinforcement system or by Hiring them, they’ll gain Rapport. This Rapport unlocks various benefits, but more notably their skill points.
Each Mercenary has their own Rapport to earn, either with their own rewards. These rewards appear to stack, so maxing all of them will prove to be beneficial.
Bartering
The Mercenaries of the Pale Hand will also barter with you, offering you various items and reward Caches. This can be done with Pale Marks, a Currency earned from the Rapport System.
This system appears to be customizable too, as it seems there are Trade Agreements you can get that will adjust what loot they offer.
We doubt this will be a great source of loot, but there’s always the off-chance they may be able to trade you Unique or Mythic Items with enough investment.
Dark Citadel (Co-op Dungeon)
They previewed a bit of the Dark Citadel, the Massive Co-op dungeon coming with Vessel of Hatred. It’s stated to require a minimum of two players to clear all the necessary puzzles and traps.
From what what shown, there appear to be Pressure Plate Gates, which require a player to be on them to deactivate the barrier and allow forward progression. There are also hold out zones, where you have to stay near or protect an object until a timer expires.
This also culminates in a much more mechanical boss fight, similar to that of a raid. Where a player might need to pick up an object to be able to reflect an attack at the boss, and every player needs to do it once to clear the fight.
Each of these bosses even has their own unique armor set that can be unlocked. Along with other rewards like a Scroll of Re-Tempering, which allows you continue Tempering an item that has exhausted its Tempering Re-rolls. There appears to be a whole host of rewards, but these are just the ones mentioned.
This looks and sounds very promising overall, but I’ll always be wary that it will push people towards gatekeeper-like behaviors, which tends to be a downside to running this type of content in groups with random people.
Party Finder
We’re finally getting a Party Finder system for Diablo. This at the very least will help mitigate some concerns when it comes to grouping with random folks for things like the Dark Citadel.
We’ll be able to Create or Join parties to fit the content we want to do. The menu shown had options for Bosses, Dungeons, Seasonal Events, Open World, Citadel, and Other. These are also then subdivided into small categories, like tackling a particular Wing of the Dark Citadel.
Progression Updates
A blog post released alongside the Gamescom appearance also shows there is a Torment 1 Difficulty in Party Finder. This at the very least suggests we’re finally getting higher and more rewarding difficulties for all content, not just tied to a consumable or Dungeon Tier.
With other details from previous hands-on events, and Blizzard opting to cover the Level Indicator for their new video seem to suggest the rumors of players capping at Level 60 just might be true.
The only thing that is certain is that there will be more details on all of this coming August 29th, with their next Campfire Chat.
If you’re looking for more Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred information, we have information on the Upcoming Spritborn Class as well as the available Vessel of Hatred Editions and Pre-purchase bonuses.
