As an avid enthusiast of artful, purposeful suffering in games, returning to Diablo 4 for its first season seems, on the surface, like a joyful midnight binge at McDonalds: a hollow but familiar, mostly satisfying romp through your menu favourites, with useless tchotchkes that come with your meal, whether you want them or not. But once you hit endgame - I maxed out the entire season battle pass in a week - everything becomes a seemingly interminable period of digestive limbo. This constipatory hangover is usually marked by a series of revelations - I think I'm over it, they changed the recipe, this doesn't taste as good as it used to. But when season two arrives, we'll be back at the beginning of the cycle again, clamouring for the golden arches of hell to open for eager, optimistic, freshly-rolled Wanderers. For many Diablo players, including myself, this is the way.
It's true that Diablo has always been about the unending grind, but in season one, the tedium has never been so pronounced. At times, it felt more joyless than the spiritless farming and loot churn that was a defining part of Diablo 3. With all of the season pass treats pushed at me each time I do a little more, it often feels like I'm being trained on maximising my productivity and efficiency in a corporate rewards program or a gig worker job. Examining the new Diablo has largely been coming to terms with my relationship with the game and the way it meticulously replicates real-world gig economy bullshit, something that triple-A live-service games have always done to a degree, but now, the similarities feel downright pathological.
A short, somewhat generic questline introduces the seasonal Malignant theme to Sanctuary. It involves helping a fellow named Cormond tackle a new blight he calls the Malignant, which covers the land in sallow, glowing pustules. More specifically, it involves killing entumored Malignant monsters, collecting their hearts in special cages, and socketing them into jewellery for powerful buffs. These are best found in Malignant tunnels, a standalone dungeon system that requires the use of special items called invokers. This cancerous motif permeates Sanctuary, and the schtick of these Malignant creatures is that you basically have to kill them twice to obtain their caged hearts. Apart from the new season, there's also an encyclopaedia-length patch update, which includes quality of life improvements, class balancing, and other tweaks. Even as a longtime MMO player accustomed to the formalities of live-service games, after a certain point, poring over these notes is like trying to find meaning in a CVS receipt.